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ANDREW JOHNSON 

MILITARY GOVERNOR 
OF TENNESSEE 


A DISSERTATION 

PRESENTED TO THE 

Faculty of Princeton University 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

Doctor of Philosophy 


By 

CLIFTON R. HALL 




PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1916 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 

MILITARY GOVERNOR 
OF TENNESSEE 


A DISSERTATION 

PRESENTED TO THE 

Faculty of Princeton University 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

Doctor of Philosophy 


By 

CLIFTON R. HALL 


PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1916 


i 


ETffdl 

J6J4- 


Copyright, 1916, by 
Princeton University Press 

Published, October, 1916 

Accepted by the Department of 
History and Politics 

April, 1914 


rv r t 

ipif 






PREFACE 


This book, as its title implies, is an attempt to trace the per¬ 
sonality of Andrew Johnson through the years 1862-1865, when 
the burden of military government and reconstruction in 
Tennessee rested principally upon his shoulders. With this 
purpose in mind, I have refrained from going into several temp¬ 
ting by-paths of the subject. The military administration in 
West Tennessee, for example, for which not Johnson, but the 
generals of the regular army stationed at Memphis were primarily 
responsible, has been scarcely touched upon; so, too, the working 
of the Federal 1 trade regulations in Tennessee, a subject on which 
a separate monograph might be written. Nor have I carried 
my account beyond the spring of 1865, when Johnson left 
Tennessee for Washington. The subsequent details of recon¬ 
struction in the state may be found in J. W. Fertig’s “The 
Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee,” which also treats 
of the period of the war, but which was written before the 
Johnson papers in the Library of Congress were available for 
study. 

As is apparent from the footnotes, I have based my account 
largely upon the Johnson papers, the Official Records of the 
Union and Confederate Armies, and the contemporary news¬ 
papers. Of these last, the Nashville Union is a source of the 
highest importance. It is, of course, polemical and violently 
partisan, but it contains a surprising amount of detailed news of 
any local occurrence of interest and notices and discusses 
all references to Tennessee affairs -which it discovers in ex¬ 
changes; and its assertions can usually be checked from other 
sources. I have made little use of Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig, 
a file of which is in the Yale University library, or of “Parson 
Brownlow’s Book,” for the obvious reason that, in this period 
of his career, the choleric parson was consciously blinking facts 
and coining political capital out of superlatives. 

I am conscious of my failure adequately to present the Con- 


IV 


PREFACE 


federate side of many controverted points. There is a most 
regrettable dearth of material for this purpose, even the anti¬ 
administration newspapers of Memphis, such as the Argus and the 
Avalanche existing, unless I am mistaken, only in files so broken 
as to be practically of no value to the historian. Fortunately, for 
an investigation directed to Johnson’s own career, this kind of 
material is not essential. 

It is hardly necessary for me to add, in explanation of my 
method of treating my subject, that I have desired to show 
how the lessons learned by Johnson in reconstructing his own 
state constituted a training for the work to which he was so 
suddenly and unexpectedly called in a national capacity. It 
will be seen, I think, that his attitude, as president, toward the 
problems of reconstruction, was, in most respects, a natural 
consequence of his experience as military governor of Tennessee. 

I am happy to express my gratitude to Professor Robert M. 
McElroy and Professor William Starr Myers of Princeton 
for their kindly interest and assistance in my work, and to 
Dr. Gaillard Hunt, of the Library of Congress, for many 
courtesies shown me. 

Clifton R. Hall. 

Princton, N. J. 

1915 • 


CONTENTS 


Chapter I. SECESSION . i 

Chapter II. ANDREW JOHNSON . 20 

Chapter III. INAUGURATION OF MILITARY GOV¬ 


ERNMENT . 32 

Chapter IV. THE DEFENSE OF NASHVILLE .... 50 

Chapter V. REPRESSION UNDER ROSECRANS.. 71 

Chapter VI. MILITARY AND POLITICAL RE¬ 
VERSES 1863 . 87 

Chapter VII. PROGRESS OF REORGANIZATION.. no 

Chapter VIII. THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 

1864 .139 

Chapter IX. REORGANIZATION ACCOM¬ 
PLISHED .157 

Chapter X. A GOVERNOR-OF-ALL-WORK.176 

Chapter XI. CONCLUSION .210 










2 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


tion. These were her most precious interests. As a border 
state, situated between North and South and deriving profit 
and advantage from both, she perceived in the Union her best 
prospects for prosperity; and had the Union been peaceably 
dissolved in such a way as not to interfere with her “peculiar 
institutions” and her channels of communication with the slave 
states, it is possible—though, indeed, not probable—that her con¬ 
servative antecedents might have combined with considerations 
of her own advantage to hold her true to her old allegiance. 
The attitude of acquiescence by most of her leaders, her news¬ 
papers and the great majority of her citizens in the election of 
Lincoln showed at least that they had no sympathy with any 
project to disrupt the Union before the infringement of Southern 
rights by overt acts of the Federal government- 3 

The belligerent pro-slavery minority, however, were for im¬ 
mediate action, and the initiation of secession by the legislatures 
of South Carolina and Georgia aroused popular excitement 
and encouraged them in this course. Their guiding spirit was 
the governor, Isham G. Harris, who, in constant communication 
with the secession leaders in the other states and alert for 
the auspicious moment to perfect his designs, waited only for 
assurance of decisive action by his neighbors to convene the 
legislature in secret session on the 7th of January, 1861 “to 
consider the present condition of the country.” In his message, 
he advised that the question of calling a convention be sub¬ 
mitted forthwith to the people; but suggested, as the safest 
and wisest procedure, that amendments to the Federal Con¬ 
stitution, designed permanently to tie the hands of the Northern 
majority—such as the restoration of a compromise line and its 
extension to the Pacific, modifications of the fugitive-slave 
law as concessions to Northern sentiment, and a provision against 
the repeal of these measures except by the unanimous consent 
of the slave-holding states—be insisted on. Harris’ opinion of 
the actual worth of his own pacific proposals was shown in 
the observation: “Before your adjournment, in all human prob¬ 
ability, the only practical question for the state to determine 

* Memphis Bulletin, Nov. 12, i860; Nashville Banner, Nov. 13, i860, 
etc. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


3 


will be whether or not she will unite her fortunes with a North¬ 
ern or Southern Confederacy; upon which question, when pre¬ 
sented, I am certain there can be little or no division in senti¬ 
ment, identified as we are in every respect with the South.” 4 

Immediately upon this message, as if part of a prearranged 
plan, followed the news of the secession of Mississippi, Florida, 
Alabama and Georgia and the repulse of the Star of the West 
in Charleston harbor. The state seethed with excitement. 
Secession meetings were held everywhere and the legislature, 
strongly pro-Southern in sympathy from the beginning, hastened 
to provide (January 19) for a popular vote on the question 
of assembling a convention “to adopt such measures for vindicat¬ 
ing the sovereignty of the state and the protection of its in¬ 
stitutions as shall appear to them to be demanded,” with high 
hopes of stampeding Tennessee for their views. With the 
wise intent of avoiding the appearance of precipitation or 
illegality, it was declared that no action of the convention 
favoring secession should be valid until submitted to the people 
and carried by a vote equal to the majority vote in the guber¬ 
natorial election of 1859. At the same time, the people were to 
choose delegates to attend the convention, in case one should 
be held. 5 

The legislature then proceeded to adopt significant resolu¬ 
tions—asking the president of the United States and the au¬ 
thorities of the Southern states to “reciprocally communicate 
assurances” of their peaceable designs, regretting the action of 
the New York legislature in tendering men and money for the 
coercion of sovereign states, and directing the governors to in¬ 
form the executive of New York “that it is the opinion of this 
General Assembly that whenever the authorities of that state 
shall send armed forces to the South for the purpose indicated 
... the people of Tennessee, uniting with their brethren of 
the South, will, as one man, resist such invasion of the soil of 

4 Senate Journal 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 1st extra session , 1861, 
pp. 6 seq.; Caldwell, “Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee,” 
pp. 268 seq. 

• Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 1st extra session, 1861, p. 15. 


4 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


the South at any hazard and to the last extremity/’ 6 That in 
these resolutions the legislators exactly expressed the sentiments 
of the vast majority of their constituents there is no reason 
to doubt. Like Virginia and North Carolina, though more 
ardently, they clung to the old Union with which their affections 
and interests were so closely identified; but they believed firmly 
in state sovereignty and the constitutional exemption of their 
“rights” from invasion by the Federal government, and, perceiving 
that their institutions and those of the Southern states were 
the same, they looked upon any forcible assault upon “Southern 
liberties” as directed also against their own. An appeal to 
arms would undermine the neutral ground on which they hoped 
to stand and, forced to take sides, they could not hesitate. The 
prayers of all Union-lovers were for the success of the peace 
convention about to meet in Washington. 

In these sentiments the people of East Tennessee had no 
share. This region had been settled largely by Scotch-Irish 
from Virginia and North Carolina. Geographically it consists 
of mountains and narrow valleys, affording, for the most part, 
profitable returns in grain and live stock to industrious, provident 
white inhabitants, but utterly unsuited to a system of slave labor. 7 
The farms were small and the man of wealth was the distinct 
exception—conditions contributing to the development of a 
rough, vigorous and aggressive democracy, of which Andrew 
Johnson, the tailor-politican was the type and leader. In the 
cities, notably Knoxville, was a small, but powerful coterie 
of conservative professional men, Whigs, like T. A. R. Nelson 
and Maynard. To such men the perpetuation of slavery was 
of little moment, and the extension of it of no moment at all. 
Their Union predilections encountered no contrary impulse. To 
the argument that the freeing of the slaves would humiliate the 
white laborer and bring him into competition with the black, 
they replied that it would also destroy the unjust ascendency 
of the rich aristocratic proprietor, created by the slave system, 

6 House Journal, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 1st extra session, 1861, 
pp. 66, 76, et passim. 

7 The ratio of slaves to whites was about one to twelve. Census of i860, 
quoted by Fertig, The Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee, p. 28. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 5 

which cheapened the value of labor and closed the avenues of 
industry, and would throw all men, white and black, into a 
fair competition, in which the ambitious Scotchman, born and 
bred to intelligent self-dependence, had no reason to fear the 
result. 

Thus, with a powerful leaven of loyalty to the Union—uncon¬ 
ditional on the part of the East Tennesseeans; sustained, in the 
case of the Whigs of Middle and West Tennessee, by the hope 
that the use of force might be averted and Tennessee become 
the mediator to reconcile the contending sections and save the 
Union—the people voted, on the 9th of February, on the proposi¬ 
tion submitted to them by the legislature. The peace conference 
was still in session. The result was 57,798 in favor of a con¬ 
vention; 69,675 against it. East Tennessee voted five to one 
in the negative; Middle Tennessee followed suit by a majority 
of 1,382; West Tennessee gave a 15,118 majority for the 
affirmative. The vote for Union delegates to the convention 
was 88,803; for disunion delegates, 24,749.3 Thus the people 
declared that they did not wish even to discuss the question of 
secession. Tennessee was still emphatically loyal and the South¬ 
ern cause had sustained a severe reverse. 

“The election of February was a division along party lines. 
Its result was simply an indication that the Whig party of 
Tennessee was still opposed to the doctrine of secession.” 9 All 
this was changed by the outbreak of actual hostilities in April. 
Enough has been said to indicate that coercion was the rock on 
which the Union party in Tennessee would split. Secession 
at once became popular and irrisistible. To President Lincoln’s 
call for troops, Governor Harris replied (April 18) : “Tennessee 
will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, 
if necessary, for the defence of our rights and those of our 
Southern brothers.” 10 

Still the Whig leaders, whose political religion was love and 
service of the Union, could not bring themselves to believe that 
the noble structure for which Clay and Webster had labored so 

8 Annual Cyclopedia, 1861, p. 677. 

9 Neal, Disunion and Restoration in Tennessee, p. 14. 

10 Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, pp. 5 i 3 _ 5 I 9 - 


6 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


passionately was tumbling to pieces before their eyes, while 
they stood powerless to prevent the ruin. On the very day 
when Governor Harris sent his defiant reply to the president, 
Neil S. Brown, Russell Houston, E. H. Ewing, John Bell, R. J. 
Meigs and other prominent Whigs appealed to the Tennesseeans 
in an impassioned address. “The agitation of the slavery ques¬ 
tion, combined with party spirit and sectional animosity,” they 
said, “has at length produced the legitimate fruit.” They de¬ 
nounced and deplored the coercive policy of the president “as 
calculated to dissolve the Union forever and to dissolve it in 
the blood of our fellow-citizens,” and approved the governor's 
refusal to contribute to that end, but, they continued, they did 
not think it Tennessee's duty, “considering her position in the 
Union, and in view of the great question of the peace of our 
distracted country, to take sides against the government.” To 
do so would be to “terminate her grand mission of peace-maker 
between the states of the South and the general government. 
Nay, more; the almost inevitable result would be the transfer 
of the war within her own borders—the defeat of all hopes of 
reconciliation, and the deluging of the state with the blood of 
her own people.” (This was to speak with the oracular tongue 
of fate.) “The present duty of Tennessee is to maintain a 
position of independence—taking sides with the Union and the 
peace of the country against all assailants, whether from the 
North or South. Her position should be to maintain the sanctity 
of her soil from the hostile tread of any party. . . . But should 
a purpose be developed by the government of overrunning and 
subjugating our brethren of the seceded states, we say un¬ 
equivocally, that it will be the duty of the state to resist at all 
hazards, at any cost, and by arms, any such purpose or attempt.” 
Therefore let the authorities of the state proceed at once to 
arm her for all emergencies, but “in the meantime let her, 
as speedily as she can, hold a conference with her sister slave¬ 
holding states yet in the Union, for the purpose of devising 
plans for the preservation of the peace of the land. . . . The 
border slave states may prevent this civil war; and why shall 
they not do it?” 11 

u Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. i, p. 71; Greeley, American Conflict, 
vol. i, p. 481. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 7 

In all this there is nothing - new. It is the last despairing, 
hopeless struggle of the Whigs to maintain their old position of 
peace, compromise and Union. Hardly had they spoken when 
the tide of secession swept them irresistibly with it into the 
disaster they so clearly foresaw. Four days later, Bell declared 
for the South, and most of his friends followed his lead. Except 
in East Tennessee, the Union sympathizers were frightened into 
silence. By the 24th of April, Gideon J. Pillow could write 
from Nashville to L. P. Walker, the Confederate secretary of 
war: “We are now united in Middle and West Tennessee, and 
we think East Tennessee will soon be so, or nearly so. Ethe¬ 
ridge attempted to make a speech at Paris yesterday, but was 
prevented by the people after a short conflict with pistols, 
in which four were wounded and one killed. Johnson has at 
last returned to East Tennessee, and had his nose pulled on the 
way; was hissed and hooted at all along on his route. . . . His 
power is gone, and henceforth there will be nothing left but the 
stench of the traitor.” 12 

Fort Sumter and President Lincoln had restored the prestige 
of Governor Harris, and he hastened to utilize it. The legis¬ 
lature, in full sympathy with him, reassembled at his call on the 
25th of April and went into secret session, the members being 
pledged to reveal nothing that transpired during their delibera¬ 
tions. Harris’ message asserted that the president had “wantonly 
inaugurated an internecine war between the people of the slave 
and non-slave-holding states,” urged the passage of ordinances 
of secession and union with the Confederacy “in such manner 
as shall involve the highest exercise of sovereign authority by 
the people of the state,” and, to that end, asked that opportunity 
be given for “a fair and full expression of the popular will on 
each of these propositions separately.” 13 His motives in thus 

13 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies , series i, vol. 
lii, part ii, p. 69. (This publication will hereafter be referred to as 
“O. R.”). 

13 Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p, 1. 
“Under existing circumstances I can see no propriety in encumbering the 
people of the state with the election of delegates, to do that which is in 
our power to enable them to do directly for themselves. The most direct 
as well as the highest act of sovereignty, according to our theory, is 


8 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


apparently clogging the wheels of the secession chariot for the 
sake of popular sovereignty and strict legality were, however, 
perhaps not as disinterested as they appeared on their face. '‘The 
object of the governor in recommending separate ordinances,” 
wrote Henry W. Hilliard, the Confederate agent on the ground, 
to Secretary Toombs, “is to secure beyond all possibility of 
doubt the speedy secession of Tennessee from the government 
of the United States. . . . The first proposition will be ratified 
by an overwhelming popular vote. As to the second, which 
provides for the admission of Tennessee as a member of the 
Confederate States, there will be decided opposition, for many 
desire to establish a middle confederacy, formed of the border 
states, as they are termed. You will readily comprehend that 
personal considerations influence opinion to some extent in re¬ 
gard to this measure. ... A great change has taken place in 
public sentiment here within a few days, and the feeling in 
favor of our government rises into enthusiasm. ... By exist¬ 
ing laws the governor has no authority to send troops beyond 
the limits of the state, but the legislature will authorize him 
to order them to any point, and in anticipation of this, or under 
the pressure of affairs, Governor Harris is now sending troops 
into Virginia. . . . Our Constitution is highly approved, and 
the conduct of our government inspires respect and admiration.” 14 

Governor Harris had further recommended that the state be 
placed at once upon a war footing. 15 In response, the assembly 
authorized him (April 26) to order the immediate organization 
of all the regiments and companies tendered to him. 16 On the 
6th of May, it placed in his hands the raising, organization, and 
equipment of 55,000 volunteers, the charge of the troops and 
the direction of the defence of the state, and gave him, with the 

that by which the people vote, not merely for men, but for measures sub¬ 
mitted for their approval or rejection. Since it is only the voice of the 
people that is to be heard, there is no reason why they may not be readily 
and effectively express themselves upon an ordinance framed and sub¬ 
mitted to them by the legislature as if submitted by a convention.” 

14 O. R., series i, vol. lii, part ii, p. 76. 

15 Senate Journal, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, 
p. 11. 

341 Ibid, p 17. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


9 


concurrence of the military and financial board, the control of 
the military fund and the authority to make contracts for military 
purposes. 17 

Meanwhile, the Confederate commissioner, Hilliard, had 
been in conference with Harris and was introduced by him to 
the legislature, which he addressed, by invitation, on the 30th 
of April, urging the prompt union of Tennessee with the 
Southern republic. 18 A joint resolution of the 1st of May au¬ 
thorized the governor to appoint three commissioners to enter 
into a military league with the Montgomery government. This 
league, consummated on the 7th, looked to “a speedy admission 
into the Confederacy” and placed the military force of the 
state under the coritrol and direction of President Davis. 19 
The legislature ratified it the same day and invited the Con¬ 
federacy to make Nashville its capital. 20 

Not until, by these remarkable proceedings, the Southern 
sympathizers had delivered the state bound into the hands 
of the Confederacy and destroyed all possibility of a free ex¬ 
pression of the popular will, did they seek to throw the cloak 
of legality over their acts by introducing the fiat of the “ultimate 
sovereign.” By an act passed on the 6th of May, embodying 
the recommendations of Harris’ message, the people were called 
to vote, on the 8th of June, on two distinct ordinances: (1) a 
declaration of independence and separation from the Federal 
Union; (2) the adoption of the constitution of the provisional 
government of the Confederacy. 21 

“The spirit of secession appears to have reached its culminat¬ 
ing point in Tennessee,” said the Louisville Journal of May 
13. “Certainly the fell spirit has, as yet, reached no higher 
point of outrageous tyranny. The whole of the late proceed¬ 
ings in Tennessee has been as gross an outrage as ever was 
perpetrated by the worst tyrant of all the earth. The whole 
secession movement, on the part of the legislature of that 

17 Acts, 33d Term. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861, p. 21. 

™ Senate Journal, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861 , 

p. 30. 

19 Acts, 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session, 1861 p. 19. 

* Ibid/ 

“Ibid., p. 13. 


10 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


state, has been lawless, violent and tumultuous. The pretense 
of submitting the ordinance of secession to the vote of the 
people of the state, after placing her military power and re¬ 
sources at the disposal and under the command of the Con¬ 
federate States without any authority from the people, is as 
bitter and insolent a mockery of popular rights as the human 
mind could invent.” 

Allowing for undue violence of language, this is a statement 
of fact. Under the circumstances, the election was bound to 
be a farce. Before the 8th of June, Governor Harris had 
raised most of the troops authorized by the legislature and the 
state was full of soldiers. The sentiment of the people was 
now overwhelmingly for the Confederacy and, between soldiers 
and sentiment, he was a brave Union man who ventured to 
speak his mind at the polls. That the state would have gone 
heavily for the South under the fairest possible system of election 
is certain; that a fair election would have increased the Union 
vote seems equally so. But a mere victory would not content 
the secessionists; for moral effect, they required the nearest 
possible approach to unanimity. 

Tennessee declared its independence by a majority of over 
61,000 in a total vote of nearly 156,000, and its desire to join 
the Confederacy by a majority of 60,000. Middle Tennessee 
was for the South, 58,000 to 8,000; West Tennessee, 29,000 
to 6,000. East Tennessee clung defiantly to its loyalty, 33,000 
to 14,500. The military camps, comprising over 6,000 soldiers, 
went unanimously for separation and the Confederacy. Nearly 
20,000 more votes were cast than at previous elections, which 
gave some color to charges of corruption and illegal voting 
by Confederate soldiers from other states. Governor Harris 
thereupon (June 24) proclaimed the state out of the Union 
and a part of the Confederacy. 22 

These proceedings, from first to last, were palpably irregular, 
and, by any construction, all except the secession by vote of 
the people were unconstitutional. It was sought to justify 

22 Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. ii, doc. 37. McPherson, Political 
History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, p. 5. For the 
vote, see Nashville Dispatch, Jan. n, 1865. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


ii 


this final act under the pronouncement in the preamble of the 
state constitution “that all power is inherent in the people, and 
all free governments are founded on their authority, and in¬ 
stituted for their peace, safety, and happiness,” that “for the 
advancement of those ends they have at all times, an inalienable 
and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the govern¬ 
ment in such manner as they may think proper,” and “that 
government being instituted for the common benefit, the doc¬ 
trine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression 
is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of 
mankind.” 23 That is, the action of the people must be validated, 
if at all, by an appeal to the reserved, extra-constitutional 
rights inhering in sovereignty. The constitution provided for 
its amendment by a slow process requiring at least two years, 
which, granting the existence of “arbitrary power and oppres¬ 
sion,” might imperil the “peace, safety and happiness” of the 
people, for the advancement of which the government could 
at any time be altered or abolished; if so, irregular measures 
were defensible. These reflections will be of value when we 
come to consider the reconstruction of 1865. 

But, although it be conceded that the “sovereign people” 
had the right to decide their destiny by any means they chose 
to adopt, the military ordinance and the league with the Con¬ 
federacy, put through before the sovereign had spoken, are 
indefensible from any legal standpoint, and throw suspicion 
upon the final vote itself. The governor and legislature, holding 
office under the state constitution of 1834, had taken oath to 
support the Constitution of the United States, and were obliged 
to do so until their state constitution was altered. 24 If the 
people, by the exercise of the “reserve” of sovereignty, could 
release them, they were bound at least until some sovereign 
act transpired. The practical effect of their proceedings was 
to precipitate revolution. The terms temporary league and 
loan of military forces to the Confederacy were but blinds 
behind which they deliberately violated strict moral and con¬ 
stitutional obligations. 

33 Tennessee State Constitution of 1834. Art, 1, sec. i-11, Miller’s Man¬ 
ual of Tennessee, p. 81. 

34 Ibid., art x. sec. i. 


12 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


From the beginning, the loyal people of East Tennessee fully 
comprehended the significance of the transactions at the capital, 
and viewed the course of events with apprehension and dismay. 
The illegal ordinances of early May confirmed their worst fears, 
and their leaders, Whig and Democrat, united in a call to a 
convention at Knoxville on the 30th of that month. 25 This 
assembly, designated by the Memphis Appeal as “the little batch 
of disaffected traitors who hover around the noxious atmosphere 
of Andrew Johnson’s home,” adopted resolutions condemning 
the doctrine of secession, declaring the ordinances of the legis¬ 
lature to be acts of usurpation, urging the policy of Kentucky as 
the true policy for Tennessee and all the border states, and 
appealing to the people, “while it is yet in their power, to 
come up in the majesty of their strength and restore Tennessee 
to her true position.” 26 Following the election of June 8, 
in which East Tennessee stood staunchly by the Union, the 
convention reassembled at Greenville (June 17-20) at the call 
of its president and promulgated the following striking declara¬ 
tion : 

“So far as we can learn, the election held in this state on 
the eighth day of the present month was free, with few ex¬ 
ceptions, in no part of the state other than East Tennessee. 
In the large parts of Middle and West Tennessee no speeches 
or discussions in favor of the Union were permitted. Union 
papers were not allowed to circulate. Measures were taken 
in some parts of West Tennessee, in defiance of the Constitu¬ 
tion and laws, which allow folded tickets to have the ballot 
numbered in such manner as to mark and expose the Union 
votes. . . . Disunionists in many places had charge of the 
polls, and Union men, when voting, were denounced as Lincoln- 
ites and abolitionists. The unanimity of the votes in many 
large counties where but a few weeks ago the Union sentiment 
was so strong proves beyond doubt that Union men were over¬ 
awed by the tyranny of the military power, and the still greater 
tyranny of a corrupt and subsidized press. . . . For these and 
other causes we do not regard the result of the election as 

25 O. R., series i, vol. lii, part i, p. .148. 

M Ibid. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 13 

expressive of the will of a majority of the freemen of Tennessee. 
. . . But if this view is erroneous, we have the same, and as 
we think a much better right to remain in the government of 
the United States than the other divisions of Tennessee have 
to secede from it. We prefer to remain attached to the gov¬ 
ernment of our fathers. ... We believe there is no cause Tor 
rebellion or secession on the part of the people of Tennessee.” 
Wishing, therefore, “to avert a conflict with our brethren in 
other parts of the state, and desiring that every constitutional 
means shall be resorted to for the preservation of peace,” the 
convention appointed a committee to ask the consent of the 
general assembly that the counties of East Tennessee and those 
of Middle Tennessee so desiring might form a separate state . 27 
This was “peaceable secession” in a new aspect. The conven¬ 
tion then adjourned, subject to the call of its president whenever 
another meeting should be deemed desirable. Two years were 
to elapse before it reassembled. 

A petition embodying these resolutions was presented to the 
general assembly on the 20th of June and referred to a joint 
committee, but no action was ever taken on it. Its only result 
was to mark the section for the immediate attention of the Con¬ 
federacy. The people of East Tennessee were not blind to the 
danger of the course they were pursuing, but their courage re¬ 
mained unshaken. The first Thursday in August was the regular 
date for the choice of representatives to the Federal Congress, 
and Governor Harris, by proclamation, ordered that the election 
take place as usual, the delegates chosen to sit in the Congress 
of the Confederacy. In each of the four districts of East Ten¬ 
nessee, the Confederate nominees were opposed by Unionists, 
and all of the latter (Thomas A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, 
Andrew J. Clements, and George W. Bridges) were elected at the 
polls. The vote for Nelson and Maynard was so overwhelming 
that their opponents were compelled to acknowledge defeat. The 
other two beaten candidates were seated. Bridges and Nelson 
were arrested by Confederate troops on their way to Washington, 
Bridges finally escaping from prison and being admitted 
to the House near the close of the session. Nelson consented 


2T Ibid., p. 168. 


14 ANDREW JOHNSON 

to take an oath of neutrality, which bound him to inaction during 
the war. 28 

The attention of statesmen and military men both North and 
South was now directed to East Tennessee. The district was of 
great strategic importance. Its occupation meant the control of 
the railroad communication between the Mississippi valley and 
eastern Virginia. Politically it afforded a prop to the Union 
sentiment in western Virginia and North Carolina. As early 
as May, the leading East Tennesseeans in Washington, Senator 
Andrew Johnson and Representative Horace Maynard, were be¬ 
sieging the president for prompt aid for the Union cause, and 
some arms and supplies were sent, 29 but the action of the Con¬ 
federates was more effective. In August, General Felix K. 
Zollicoffer, himself an East Tennesseean, was designated to re¬ 
claim the district for the Confederacy, and promptly overran it. 

Then followed a reign of terror which, making all allowance 
for exaggeration and hysteria in the contemporary reports, fully 
entitles the East Tennessee loyalists to the name of martyrs. Much 
that has been written of Confederate brutality and outrages is 
doubtless false. Accounts like Brownlow’s have been con¬ 
troverted by Southern writers. The Richmond Enquirer after¬ 
wards asserted that the policy of the Confederate government 
towards the district had been “generous to weakness.” “The 
Union men of East Tennessee,” it affirmed, “never have been 
subjected to restraint, punishment, or violence, on account of 
their being Union men. ... No Union man who has not 
acted treason to the Confederate States, who has not in some 
form, been in open, factious rebellion against its laws and 
authority, has been subjected to the slightest inconvenience 
on account of his sentiments.” 30 This may be approximately 
true; still, it is certain that the Confederates were determined, 
by fair means or foul, to control the district. The Enquirer 

28 Fertig, The Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee, p. 31, cites 
Report of contested election cases, pp. 466 et seq. and Congressional Globe, 
Feb. 23, 1863. 

* General Beauregard wrote to President Davis (June 27) that 
Johnson had sent 10,000 muskets from Washington to East Tennessee. 
O. R., series i, vol. lii part ii, p. 115. 

30 Quoted by Nashville Union, Aug. 10, 1862. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


15 

called it “the keystone of the Southern arch.” Not only did 
its passes afford avenues for the manoeuvres of armies and its 
principal railroad a great artery of communication and supply; 
it was also an apparently inexhaustible storehouse of salt and 
bacon, those scarce and precious necessaries of the soldier’s life. 
During the first two years of the war, it became a great com¬ 
missariat of the Southern army. Its tremendous value justified 
almost any measure calculated to secure it. When the con¬ 
ciliatory policy of Zollicoffer failed, more stringent methods 
were adopted. Many of the troops employed for the purpose 
of subjugation were themselves Tennesseeans, their bitterness 
intensified by the political struggle within the state, and keenly 
realizing that, unless the South prevailed, they had to expect 
the penalty of treason at the hands of vindictive local enemies. 
As the war progressed, East Tennessee became one of its battle¬ 
grounds. Union and Confederate armies marched and counter¬ 
marched across it, leaving inevitable destruction in their wake. 
The Confederates, insisting that Tennessee had lawfully exer¬ 
cised her right of secession and that all her citizens were bound 
thereby, their Union convictions to the contrary notwithstanding, 
put their conscription law in full operation in the state and 
gave the people the option of submitting to it or meeting the 
fate of traitors. Many were torn from their homes for un¬ 
willing service in the ranks of the enemy. When such an 
alternative confronted the Union man who might otherwise 
have been disposed to consider his security before his patriotism 
(and it was alleged that the conscription searched out with 
especial care those whose fidelity to the Confederacy was open 
to suspicion), acquiescence in Southern domination could bring 
but cold comfort. 31 

Meanwhile the crops were confiscated and sent south, and as 
was natural, the friends of the Union were the first to be 
stripped and left without hope of remuneration. Detached bands 
of horsemen, whom the regular Confederate commanders had 
no means of controlling, labored for their cause in their own 

31 For detailed accounts of East Tennessee before and during the 
war, see Parson Broumlozu’s Book; O. P. Temple, East Tennessee in the 
Civil War; Humes, The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee . 


i6 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


way, burning barns and houses, destroying stores, driving off 
cattle, and spreading terror among the inhabitants. Hosts of 
refugees fled for safety to Camp Dick Robinson and other Fed¬ 
eral military posts in Kentucky or further north, leaving their 
property in the hands of their foes. The Confederate com¬ 
mander of the post at Knoxville himself declared: “Marauding 
bands of armed men go through the country, representing 
themselves to be the authorized agents of the state or Con¬ 
federate Government; they ‘impress’ into ‘service’ horses and 
men; they plunder the helpless, and especially the quondam 
supporters of Johnson, Maynard, and Brownlow; they force 
men to enlist by the representation that otherwise they will 
be incarcerated at Tuscaloosa; they force the people to feed 
and care for themselves and horses without compensation.” 32 

The people of East Tennessee did not tamely submit to the 
domination of a superior military force. They would not be¬ 
lieve that the government for which they had struggled and 
suffered would desert them in their time of need. A Southern 
sympathizer wrote (November 12) to Jefferson Davis: they 
“look for the re-establishment of the Federal authority with 
as much confidence as the Jews look for the coming of the 
Messiah, and I feel quite sure when I assert that no event 
or circumstance can change or modify their hope.” 38 While 
their leaders implored the president for aid, they formed secret 
military organizations, whose activity aroused the apprehension 
of Zollicoffer, but which, for lack of arms, were of little value. 
Many took to “bushwhacking,” shooting Confederates from 
ambush and destroying their property—tactics which did the 
Unionists more harm than good, for they maddened the Con¬ 
federates and provoked them to savage retaliation. More effec¬ 
tive was the burning of railroad bridges. This began in 
November and seriously impeded the operations of the Con¬ 
federate forces. Secretary Benjamin ordered the execution 
of convicted bridge-burners, after summary trial by drum-head 
court-martial, “on the spot in the vicinity of the burned bridges,” 
and the imprisonment at Tuscaloosa of all other active Union 

32 Nicolay & Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. v, ch. 4. 

38 Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, p. 486. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


17 


sympathizers, and directed that In no case should a man once in 
arms against the government be released on any pledge or oath 
of allegiance. 34 The military authorities sought by mingled 
craft and violence to secure the leaders of the resistance and 
crush it in the bud. Brownlow was lured from his hiding- 
place in the mountains by the promise of a pass into Kentucky, 
and promptly arrested and imprisoned. 35 

Meanwhile the Federal government was moving with dis¬ 
astrous slowness. In October, the president had pressed on 
the war department the advantage of occupying a point on the 
railroad near Cumberland Gap, the outlet into Virginia and Ken¬ 
tucky. He was supported by the emphatic opinion of General 
Thomas at Camp Dick Robinson. When General McClellan 
became commander-in-chief in November, he assigned his per¬ 
sonal friend, General Buell, to the command in Kentucky 
and urged him to advance promptly into East Tennessee, cut 
the Confederate communications, and succor the Union sym¬ 
pathizers there. Johnson and Maynard telegraphed Buell: “Our 
people are oppressed and pursued as beasts of the forest; the 
government must come to their relief.” 36 The general replied: 
“I assure you I recognize no more imperative duty, and crave 
no higher honor, than that of rescuing our loyal friends in 
Tennessee;” 37 but he failed to suit the action to the word. The 
fact was that he had set his heart upon striking directly at the 
centre of the Confederate power at Nashville. With this end 
in view, he remained inactive, maturing his own plans, and meet¬ 
ing the importunities of Lincoln and McClellan with evasive 
replies, until the Confederate domination of East Tennessee 
was complete and only a laborious campaign could dislodge 
them. Finally a peremptory telegram from Lincoln (January 
4) forced him to confess that he had not acted in sympathy 
with his superiors and that his opportunity had been lost. His 
report met with a sharp reproof from McClellan and an ex¬ 
pression of acute disappointment and distress from Lincoln, 

34 Ibid., pp. 483-490. 

38 Ibid., p. 490. 

36 O. R., series i, vol. vii, p. 480. 

37 Ibid., p. 483. 


i8 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


who was keenly alive to the political value of East Tennessee 
to the Union, while Buell viewed the situation exclusively from 
a military standpoint. 38 

The devoted district had yet almost two years of extremest 
suffering to undergo before its deliverance. Brownlow and 
Oliver P. Temple have related in detail the pathetic history of 
those terrible times. Neither Lincoln at Washington nor John¬ 
son at Nashville, in agony over the fate of his friends and 
neighbors, to whose confidence and support he owed everything, 
could provide the needed aid. On the 8th of April, 1862, Presi¬ 
dent Davis placed East Tennessee under martial law. 39 On the 
23d, Colonel Churchwell, the Confederate provost-marshal at 
Knoxville, warned all who had fled to the enemy to return within 
thirty days. Those who did so were offered amnesty and pro¬ 
tection; those who failed to comply would have their families 
sent to Kentucky or beyond the Confederate lines at their own 
expense. “The women and children must be taken care of 
by husbands and fathers, either in East Tennessee or in the 
Lincoln government.” 40 On the 24th, Johnson's invalid wife, 
with her family, was ordered to pass beyond the Confederate 
states line within thirty-six hours. Though this order was not 
fully enforced at once, she was driven from her house and, after 
distressing experiences, sent North in September at her own 
request. 41 The families of Brownlow and Maynard were sim¬ 
ilarly served. Their property was confiscated. 

While East Tennessee was firmly in the grip of the Con¬ 
federacy, the situation in the central and western parts of the 

88 1 present, in general, the administration view. The wisdom of Buell’s 
plan is still a moot point. Writers have contended that his design to 
strike the enemy’s main force was better calculated than that of Lincoln and 
McClellan both to further the campaign and to free East Tennessee. 
Whatever the merits of the case, the lack of candor in Buell’s dispatches 
put him in bad odor with the administration. 

39 Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. iv, p. 502. 

"McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great 
Rebellion, p. 121. 

“Johnson, Papers, vol. xviii, 4104 a, 4104 d, 4104 e. This collection of 
manuscripts is in the Library of Congress at Washington. It will here¬ 
after be referred to as “J. P.”. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


19 


state was transformed by the victories of Grant. The fall of 
Fort Henry (February 6) and Fort Donelson (February 16) 
turned the Confederate line of defence extending from these 
strongholds to Bowling Green in Kentucky. The army of 
General Johnston at once abandoned Bowling Green and fell 
back through Nashville, followed by things of panic-stricken 
secessionists. Buell, pressing on in pursuit, reached the capital 
on the 25th. The state government fled to Memphis and, on 
the 20th of March, adjourned sine die. Governor Harris took 
refuge in Mississippi. On the 22d of February, Grant pro¬ 
claimed martial law in West Tennessee. No courts were to 
be held under state authority. All cases coming within reach 
of the military arm were to be adjudicated by the authorities 
established by the government of the United States. Whenever 
a sufficient number of citizens returned to their allegiance to 
maintain law and order, the military restriction would be 
removed. 42 

On the 3d of March, President Lincoln appointed Andrew 
Johnson military governor of Tennessee, with the rank of 
brigadier-general of volunteers. 


Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, p. 763. 


CHAPTER II 


Andrew Johnson 

Andrew Johnson, 1 to whose discretion the president confided 
a task appalling in its difficulties, demanding in the highest de¬ 
gree, keen instinct, fine discrimination, and sound judgment, 
was a remarkable personality, a character calculated to inspire 
admiration, hatred, enthusiasm, contempt, but never indifference. 
The record of his life is the history of the victory of an in¬ 
domitable will over countless obstacles. Dorn in 1808, the 
son of a “poor white” of Raleigh, North Carolina, and raised 
in miserable poverty, he received not even the most ordinary 
education, and, at the age of ten, was apprenticed to a tailor of 
Greenville, Tennessee, to aid in the support of his widowed 
mother. Realizing his ignorance and fired with the most ardent 
desire to improve his condition, he employed the hours after 
his day’s work was done in learning to read, and, after his 
marriage in 1827, his wife helped him to acquire the arts of 
writing and arithmetic. His greatest assets were a brilliant, 
incisive mind and an insatiable ambition; these proved decisive 
of his career. Breadth of view he never attained. 

Conscious of his superior ability, and impeded at every turn, 
in his efforts to secure the preferments he felt his worth de¬ 
manded, by lack of wealth and social standing, the monopolies 
of the plantation-owning, slave-holding aristocrats in his state, 
he early developed an intense bitterness against the artificial 
distinctions of society. Far from diminishing, this feeling grew 
upon him with years, poisoned his whole life, and impaired his 
character. At the outset it made him the champion of oppressed 
democracy and tempted him to employ the devices of the 
demagogue. To such a man East Tennessee offered a fertile 

1 John Savage, The Life and Public Service of Andrew Johnson (New 
York, 1866) is the best biography for Johnson’s early years, although an 
unscholarly, adulatory, and often indiscriminatingly partisan work. Pro¬ 
fessor St. George L. Sioussat is at work upon a life of Johnson which 
is expected to appear shortly. 


21 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 

field. The tailor’s shop became a meeting-place for the poor 
laborers of the town. There their grievances were discussed, 
and among them Johnson was first in ability and influence. He 
urged upon them the importance of asserting their right to a 
voice in the town councils, from which their interests had long 
received scant consideration, and, as their avowed representa¬ 
tive, he made his political debut as alderman of Greenville in 
1828. In 1830 he was chosen mayor. His aggressive labors 
for his constituents and his vicious, fearless attacks upon the 
aristocracy soon made him the idol of the democracy of East 
Tennessee. In 1835 he was sent to the state House of Repre¬ 
sentatives. His opposition to a popular scheme of internal im¬ 
provements, as designed to get fraudulent profits for capitalists 
at the expense of the state, brought about his defeat at the 
next election; but the results bore out his predictions and he 
was returned in 1839. Henceforth his career was a succession 
of triumphs. State senator in 1841, East Tennessee sent him 
in 1843 t° represent her in the national House, where he re¬ 
mained uninterruptedly for ten years. In 1853 he lost his 
seat, owing to the “gerrymandering” of the state under Whig 
auspices, which placed him in a strong Whig district. With 
characteristically irrepressible fighting spirit, he promptly present¬ 
ed himself as candidate for governor in opposition to the brilliant 
and popular Gustavus A. Henry, “the eagle orator,” whom he be¬ 
lieved to be the chief agent in his discomfiture, and defeated him 
in an exciting campaign. In 1855 he was re-elected over Meredith 
P. Gentry, a Know-Nothing Whig. In both these campaigns the 
rival candidates appeared in joint debate throughout the state. 
Contemporary evidence records that, while Henry and Gentry 
scrupulously observed the amenities of debate and refused to be 
badgered into compromising their reputation as dignified states¬ 
men, Johnson’s speeches were tissues of misstatement, misrepre¬ 
sentation, and insulting personalities, directed to the passions and 
unreasoning impulses of the ignorant voter. Assaults upon aris¬ 
tocrats combined with vaunting of his own low origin and the 
dignity of manual labor. 

Johnson was now the undisputed Democratic leader of the 
state. As such, he entered the national Senate at the expiration 


22 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


of his gubernatorial term in 1857, and remained there, an in¬ 
creasingly isolated and significant figure, until 1862. 

The political course of Johnson in these early years of his public 
service concerns us here only as it throws light upon his relation 
to the great events of i860 and 1861. Through every public act 
of his runs one consistent, unifying thread of purpose—the ad¬ 
vancement of the power, prosperity and liberty of the masses at 
the expense of intrenched privilege. The slave-holding aristocracy 
he hated with a bitter, enduring hatred born of envy and ambition. 
“If Johnson were a snake,” said his rival, the well-born Isham 
G. Harris, “he would lie in the grass to bite the heels of rich men’s 
children.” 2 The very thought of an aristocrat caused him to emit 
venom and lash about him with fury. He repeatedly declared 
that the aristocrats were an association of secret conspirators, 
seeking to subvert the government and the Constitution in the in¬ 
terest of their class. “What do you mean by the laboring classes ?” 
asked Jefferson Davis in the Senate. “Those who earn their bread 
by the sweat of their face, and not by fatiguing their ingenuity,” 
Johnson replied. 3 

Though himself a slaveholder, he early demonstrated his con¬ 
sistency by extending his principle to embrace the eventual eman¬ 
cipation of the negro bondman. In a speech in 1845 on the 
proposed annexation of Texas, he favored that measure as calcu¬ 
lated to improve the present condition of the slaves and, in the 
end, perhaps, to be “the gateway out of which the sable sons of 
Africa are to pass from bondage to freedom, where they can 
become merged in a population congenial with themselves, who 
know and feel no distinction in consequence of the various hues 
of skin or crosses of blood.” 4 He denounced a high tariff policy 
as redounding to the advantage of the few at the expense of the 
many, and opposed national control of internal improvements not 
in their character national, as weakening the authority and self- 
reliance of the states. The measure most intimately associated 
with his name as senator was the Homestead bill—to grant to 

2 Harriot S. Turner, Recollections of Andrew Johnson, Harper’s Maga¬ 
zine, vol. 120, p. 170. 

3 Frank Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. xii. 

4 Savage, The Life and Public Service of Andrew Johnson, p. 32. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


23 


every laborer making application for himself and family a home¬ 
stead of 160 acres out of the public domain, on condition of occu¬ 
pation and cultivation within a specified time—a project calculated 
to increase the dignity and resources of labor, the chief asset of 
the state. You transplant the laborer, he said, “from a position 
where he is making hardly anything, and consequently buying but 
little,” and “by bringing his labor in contact with the productive 
soil, you increase his ability to buy a great deal.” The treasury is 
benefited through his demand for imports and the government is 
strengthened by giving him a stake in its welfare and stability. 5 
Johnson’s ardor for the bill was not diminished by the fact that 
most of the Southern senators opposed it as a menace to Southern 
institutions, and when, after several defeats, it was carried through 
Congress in i860, only to fall before Buchanan’s veto, the presi¬ 
dent’s subserviency to Southern interests was assigned as the 
motive of his action. 

We come now to Johnson’s pronouncements on the status of 
slavery in the Union, the right of secession, and the right of the 
Federal government to coerce a recalcitrant state—the burning 
questions of the period immediately preceding the war. 6 

As regards slavery, while Johnson hoped for the eventual 
disappearance of the institution, as at variance with his favorite 
principles of democracy and equality of opportunity for all men, 
he recognized that, in fact, it was so deeply rooted in the life 
of the nation that, in justice to vested rights lawfully acquired 
and for the sake of social stability, it ought not to be molested, 
so long as it, in turn, remained in strict subordination to and 
in harmony with the government. 7 The government, the best 
and freest on earth, the one great stronghold of democracy, the 
hope of the humble and downtrodden of all the world, became 
the object of his most passionate attachment, its preservation, with 

6 Ibid., p. 53 - 

® Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, passim. 

* In 1842, Johnson introduced in the Tennessee legislature a resolution 
“that the basis to be observed in laying the state off into congressional 
districts shall be the voting population, without any regard to the three- 
fifths of the negro population.” Savage, The Life and Public Services of 
Andrew Johnson, p. 140. 


24 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


power and vitality unimpaired, the principal article of his politi¬ 
cal creed, moulding decisively his opinions on all other questions 
of state. His every speech and every action as a public man 
reiterated the slogan of Andrew Jackson, the idol of his boyhood 
and the inspiration of his whole career: “Our Union! it must be 
preserved!” Of its overthrow he could not conceive. 

Bred in the school of states’-rights democracy, Johnson nat¬ 
urally took the position that the Federal government could not 
coerce a state. But even more strongly did he maintain that the 
government was a compact for eternity, and no temporary alli¬ 
ance, revocable at the will of any party to it. Release from its 
obligations could come only by consent of all the states, or by the 
violent, extra-constitutional means of revolution, morally justi¬ 
fiable only after “a long train of abuses,” for which no remedy 
through constitutional means appeared. Thus denouncing the 
so-called right of secession, he undermined also his own anti¬ 
coercion doctrine by asserting that, while the government cannot 
coerce a state, it is under a constitutional obligation to guar¬ 
antee to every state a republican form of government, and, 
from the standpoint of the Constitution, the state consists of 
loyal citizens, be they one or many; that, in the enforcement of 
this guarantee, the government may coerce a disloyal majority 
as individuals in revolt against the true citizens of the state. 

It is apparent that Johnson’s convictions, as above outlined, 
would incline him, in the theoretical controversies over slavery 
between 1853 and i860, to adopt the popular-sovereignty doc¬ 
trine of Douglas. This, indeed, was his preference, and Douglas 
afterwards expressed his regret that Johnson had not come 
strongly to the support of himself and Crittenden early in i860, 
in their struggle against sectionalism and the extremists North 
and South. 8 His hesitation at this time is probably explained 
by the fact that the safety of the Union demanded the preservation 
of the Democratic party as a national organization. The Southern 
leaders had broken irrevocably with Douglas, and the triumph 
of himself or his policy in the party was certain to split it along 
sectional lines. Could it be held together and carry the Novem¬ 
ber election, civil war would be averted, or, at worst, indefinitely 

8 S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 71. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


25 


postponed. With this great end so close to his heart, Johnson 
supported Breckenridge at the Charleston convention and labored 
for his election. 

The vote of the people on the 6th of November, i860, destroyed 
Johnson’s hopes. The South declared that the Republican success 
committed the government to a policy of sectionalism fatal to the 
vital institutions for the preservation of which they had entered 
the Union; they were, therefore, released from their compact. 
The secession of South Carolina was followed by that of the 
other cotton states. President Lincoln asserted the determination 
of the government to perform its constitutional functions in the 
rebellious states, and they prepared to resist invasion of their 
sovereignty by force. 

In this juncture, Senator Johnson at once elected the only 
course consistent with the habits and convictions of a lifetime. 
With him the preservation of the Union overshadowed every 
other consideration, human or divine. While it seemed to him 
that this end would be best subserved by the triumph of the 
Southern Democracy, he gave it his earnest support. Now his 
beloved Union was crashing down about his ears, and the South¬ 
ern Democracy had, in his view, assumed the role of destroyer. 
Without hesitation, and with all the ardor and fury of a desperate 
champion in a sacred cause, he tore off the colors which had 
now become to him the badge of treason and struck with all his 
might for the cause he would gladly have died to save. This 
explanation of his so-called “change of front” is so obvious and 
convincing as to obviate the necessity of casting about for subtle 
reasons for his action. 9 

As late as the 13th of December, i860, Johnson made a last 
hopeless effort for peace by introducing in the Senate a proposal 
for amending the Constitution in such a way as to prevent the 
permanent monopoly of the Federal executive and judiciary by 
any section. Beginning with 1864, the president was to be 
chosen alternately from a slave-holding and a free state; senators 
were to be elected by popular vote; all Federal courts were to be 

’Oliver P. Temple (Notable Men of Tennessee from 1833 to 1875 ) 
expresses his opinion that Johnson was actuated chiefly by selfish political 
motives. 


26 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


composed of judges, one-third of whom should be elected every 
fourth year for a twelve year term, and all vacancies must be 
filled half from the free and half from the slave states. Slavery 
was to be permitted south and prohibited north of a fixed line. 
In his speech supporting these amendments, he said: “I think 
that this battle ought to be fought not outside but inside of the 
Union, and upon the battlements of the Constitution itself. . . . 
Those who have violated the Constitution either in the passage 
of what are denominated personal-liberty bills, or by their refusal 
to execute the fugitive-slave law . . . must go out, and not we. 
If we violate the Constitution by going out ourselves, I do not 
think we can go before the country with the same force of posi¬ 
tion that we shall if we stand inside of the Constitution, de¬ 
manding a compliance with its provisions and its guarantees; or, 
if need be, as I think it is, demanding additional securities. We 
should make that demand inside of the Constitution, and in the 
manner and mode pointed out by the instrument itself. Then 
we keep ourselves in the right; we put our adversary in the 
wrong; and though it may take a little longer, we take the right 
means to accomplish an end that is right in itself. ... If the 
states have the right to secede at will and pleasure, for real or 
imaginary evils or oppressions . . . this government is at an end; 
it is not stronger than a rope of sand; its own weight will crumble 
it to pieces, and it cannot exist.” 10 

Johnson was the only senator from a seceding state to retain 
his seat after his state withdrew from the Union. This fact alone 
thrust him at once into national prominence. Moreover, he pos¬ 
sessed by nature the ideal equipment for a popular champion in 
such a crisis. His almost fanatical love of the Union and his hor¬ 
ror of its destroyers, combined witih a life-long hatred of the aris¬ 
tocratic Southern leaders and of the social and economic system 
upon which they proposed to build their government to goad him 
almost to frenzy. Unbridled in speech, indomitable in spirit, relent¬ 
less in purpose, denouncing his enemies as animated by the basest, 
most despicable of motives, and threatening them with the direst 
penalties of treason, he embodied the unrestrained passions of the 

* Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d session, p. 82 et seq.; Moore, 
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. 80. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


27 


hour. From the platform in Tennessee and neighboring states 
and from the floor of the Senate, he heaped maledictions upon 
the Confederacy and sounded a stirring call to save the Union. 
He was utterly without fear. The crowd groaned and hissed 
him as he passed through Lynchburg. At Liberty he drove back 
at the point of his pistol a mob that attacked his car. He was 
hanged and shot in effigy at Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis. 

Two of Johnson’s fiery speeches for the Union in the Senate 
made especially strong impressions upon his contemporaries. One 
was delivered on the 2d of March, 1861, in the heat of the famous 
debate on the right of secession, in which he broke lances with 
Davis, Benjamin, and Lane of Oregon. It enunciates no new 
doctrines, but is notable for the violence of its language, the 
bitterness of its personalities, and its extraordinary success in the 
very purpose for which it was contrived—to sway the crowded 
galleries to demonstrations of approval of the speaker’s words. 
The episode was, says Temple, the most remarkable and the most 
intensely dramatic that ever occurred in the Senate. Several 
times, as the orator arraigned the “rebels” and “traitors,” the 
applause became so loud that the president threatened to clear 
the galleries, and, at the climacteric outburst: “I would have them 
arrested; and, if convicted, within the meaning and scope of the 
Constitution, by the eternal God, I would execute them: Sir, 
treason must be punished; its enormity and the extent and depth 
of the offence must be made known!” 11 the spectators stood 
upon their seats, swung their hats in the air, and cheered wildly. 

A far more creditable and justly meritorious effort followed the 
introduction into the Senate by Johnson (July 27) of Crittenden’s 
famous resolution, “that this war is not prosecuted upon our 
part in any spirit of oppression, nor for the purpose of conquest 
or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or inter¬ 
fering with the rights or established institutions of these states, 
but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution 
and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the 
Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several 

11 Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d session, p. 1354; Moore, 
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. 204; O. P. Temple, Notable Men of 
Tennessee, p. 397 - 


28 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


states unimpaired.” The resolution, said the senator, truly ex¬ 
pressed the sentiment of every lover of the Union. “The problem 
now being solved before the nations of the earth and before the 
people of the United States is . . . whether we can succeed . . . 
in establishing the great fact that we have a government with 
sufficient strength to maintain its existence against whatever com¬ 
bination may be presented in opposition to it. . . . Traitors and 
rebels are standing with arms in their hands, and it is said that 
we must go forward and compromise with them. They are in 
the wrong; they are making war upon the government; they are 
trying to upturn and destroy our free institutions. . . . All the 
compromise I have to make is the compromise of the Constitution 
of the United States.” The secessionists aim to establish an aris¬ 
tocracy, according to the South Carolina idea, based on property— 
slave property—and to devote their government to the interests 
of slavery. It has been said that the president of the United States 
is violating the Constitution by his so-called war measures. “Are 
not violations of the Constitution necessary for its protection and 
vindication more tolerable than violations of that sacred instru¬ 
ment aimed at the overthrow and destruction of the government? 
... I say it is the paramount duty of this government to protect 
those states, or the loyal citizens of those states, in the enjoyment 
of a republican form of government.” 

Then, lifted out of himself by the sublimity of the cause for 
which he was pleading, the speaker rose to heights of oratory that 
thrilled the hearers to whom he now revealed the essence of 
nobility in his strange and discordant nature. “I say, let the 
battle go on—it is Freedom’s cause—until the Stars and Stripes 
.... shall again be unfurled upon every cross-road and from 
every house-top throughout the Confederacy, North and South. 
Let the Union be reinstated; let the law be enforced; let the 
Constitution be supreme. . . . There will be an uprising. Do not 
talk about Republicans now; do not talk about Democrats now; 
do not talk about Whigs or Americans now; talk about your 
country and the Constitution and the Union. Save that; pre¬ 
serve the integrity of the government; once more place it 
erect among the nations of the earth; and then, if we want to 
divide about questions that may arise in our midst, we have a 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


29 


government to divide in. . . . Let the energies of the government 
be redoubled, and let it go on with the war, . . . not a war upon 
sections, not ^ war upon peculiar institutions anywhere; but let the 
Constitution and the Union be inscribed on our banners, and the 
supremacy and enforcement of the laws be its watchword. Then 
it can, it will, go on triumphantly. We must succeed. This gov¬ 
ernment must not, cannot fail. Though your flag may have trailed 
in the dust; though a retrograde movement may have been made; 
though the banner of our country may have been sullied, let it still 
be borne onward; and if, for the prosecution of this war in 
behalf of the government and the Constitution, it is necessary to 
cleanse and purify that banner, I say let it be baptized in fire 
from the sun and bathed in a nation’s blood! The nation must 
be redeemed; it must be triumphant. The Constitution—which 
is based upon principles immutable and upon which rest the 
rights of man and the hopes and expectations of those who love 
freedom throughout the civilized world—must be maintained.” 12 

This speech—particularly the emphatic assertion that the war 
was waged for the Constitution and the Union, and not against 
any section or institution—made a profound impression and helped 
secure supporters for the Union where friends were then most 
needed, in the doubtful border states. Only the conviction that 
high principles, not sectional prejudices, were the issues at stake, 
could prevail on them to endure the suffering and devastation 
which the next three years were to bring to them; and to 
drive this conviction home, no other man in public life was so 
advantageously posted as Johnson. Alexander H. Stephens fully 
understood the importance of Johnson’s service to the Union cause. 
“This speech,” he writes, “was one of the most notable, as it cer¬ 
tainly was one of the most effective ever delivered by any man 
on any occasion. I know of no instance in history when one 
speech effected such results, immediate and remote, as this one 
did. The resolution referred to and this speech especially, gave 
the war a vigor and real life it had not before, and never would 

“ Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 1st session, pp. 288-297; Moore, 
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, pp. 329 et seq.; Moore, Rebellion Record, 
vol. i, p. 415; E. G. Scott, Reconstruction during the Civil War, p. 245; 
Nicholay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. iv, p. 379. 


30 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


have had without them, on the Northern side. . . . This speech, 
throughout, was characterized by extraordinary fervor and elo¬ 
quence, and, in my judgment, did more to strengthen and arouse 
the war passions of the people at the North than everything else 
combined.” It “had a special power and influence springing from 
the very source from which it emanated. The author stood soli¬ 
tary and alone—isolated from every public man throughout the 
Southern states, and from nearly every public man throughout 
the Northern states attached to the same political party to which 
he belonged, upon the questions involved.” 13 

In December, 1861, Johnson became one of the seven members 
of the famous Joint Committee of Congress on the Conduct of 
the War, appointed after the disaster of Ball’s Bluff, which served 
as the legislative whip and spur to the executive and the army. 
It assumed to speak for the loyal people and made its judgments 
feared by the most powerful officials. Prejudice and hasty con¬ 
clusions could often be charged to it, but its zeal won it support 
in and out of Congress and brought it a prestige of which it was 
fully conscious and which it exploited to the utmost. 

The qualities of loyalty, fearlessness, aggressiveness, self-reli¬ 
ance, willingness to accept responsibilities, and resource in carry¬ 
ing out his plans, together with an intimate knowledge of the 
political factors, public men, and peculiar conditions in his state, 
designated Johnson as preeminently the man to take the initiative 
in reconstructing Tennessee. 14 True to his reputation, he did not 

13 War between the States, vol. ii, pp. 458-462. 

14 On the other hand, it was contended that the choice of Johnson 
practically foredoomed the government’s experiment in Tennessee to 
failure. Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott wrote from 
Nashville to Stanton (March 4, 1862) : “The public here have long 
known Mr. Johnson as a decided out and out Union man, and one 
politically opposed to everything concerning the Southern Confederacy, 
which, so far as Mr. Johnson is concerned, is all right and proper, but 
it will prevent him from bringing back into the ranks people who have 
taken active part against him, and many would fear that he would 
choose to be somewhat vindictive and thus persecute them—knowing well 
that they in days past did sadly persecute him. His appointment would at 
once be used by the rebels as the means of organizing their party against 
anything he might attempt, and would undoubtedly prevent many men 
(thro’ false pride) from joining the Union cause. Mr. Johnson has, in 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


3i 


hesitate to leave the comfort and security of Washington at the 
president’s call and go to a post of danger and difficulty, where, 
for the next three years, the war clouds lowered around him, but 
parted at length to reveal him unshaken and triumphant, the leader 
of his party before the country. 

times past, controlled a large share of the masses of Tennessee, but many 
of the influential men connected with those classes which he controlled 
are now numbered among his enemies. . . . Many people here think that 
neither Mr. Johnson nor any other prominent politician should be placed 
in charge of affairs in this state, as it would only serve to draw party 
lines and create fresh troubles which would not arise if some reliable 
man—such as General Campbell—was selected for the position. It has 
been intimated to me that the feeling against Mr. Johnson—if he were in 
power—is so bitter that attempts might be made to destroy his life, for 
the purpose of creating fresh troubles and gratifying revenge against him 
for his past course in opposition to the Southern Confederacy. . . This 
being the first state to be organized by the general government, great care 
should be used: the people of the South, as you know, are very sensi¬ 
tive upon the subject of state rights and your organization should be put 
in such shape as to enable the friends of the Union to satisfy the people 
that the government was using every precaution to provide them with 
a safe and prudent government, until such time as they—the Union 
people—could organize and elect their rules under the constitutions 
of the several states. Any other course might lead to serious rebellion 
against the state organizations and drive many men into support of the 
Southern Confederacy who would otherwise never be found there. This 
would undoubtedly be the effect if they had cause to believe that the 
establishing of a military government was placed in hands that would 
rule them with despotic power.” Stanton Papers, March 4, 1862, Library 
of Congress. 


CHAPTER III 


Inauguration of Military Government 

The task assumed by Governor Johnson was one of extreme 
difficulty. Had he come as an alien conqueror, or as temporary 
occupant of territory shortly to be annexed with the acquiescence 
of its inhabitants, the history of his own country would have 
furnished a precedent and international law would have supplied 
the principles on which to base his action. A conqueror holds the 
country firmly in his grip, his word is its only law, he brings 
pressure and punishment to bear with unsparing hand. No con¬ 
sideration binds him except how to fasten himself most inevitably, 
most completely upon his conquest. The military occupier has to 
deal only with problems of administrative detail, to preserve the 
status quo until the civil government of the new sovereign assumes 
its sway. 1 Johnson’s problem, on the other hand, involved unique 
complications, demanding the utmost firmness, tact, dispassionate 
calmness, and invincible courage. His path had not been blazed 
for him; the outcome no man could foresee. 

“You are hereby appointed,” reads his commission, “military 
governor of the state of Tennessee, with authority to exercise 
and perform, within the limits of that state, all and singular the 
powers, duties and functions pertaining to the office of military 
governor (including the power to establish all necessary offices 
and tribunals and suspend the writ of habeas corpus) during the 
pleasure of the president, or until the loyal inhabitants of that 
state shall organize a civil government in conformity with the 
Constitution of the United States.” 2 The accompanying instruc¬ 
tions add: “It is obvious to you that the great purpose of your 
appointment is to re-establish the authority of the Federal govern¬ 
ment in the state of Tennessee, and provide the means of maintain¬ 
ing peace and security to the loyal inhabitants of that state until 

1 W. E. Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial Law, pp. 104-m. 

9 0 . R., series i, vol. ix, p. 396; J. P. vol. xvi, 3688; Stanton Papers, 
March 4, 1862, Library of Congress. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


33 


they shall be able to establish a civil government. Upon your 
wisdom and energetic action much will depend in accomplishing 
the result. It is not deemed necessary to give any specific instruc¬ 
tions, but rather to confide in your sound discretion to adopt such 
measures as circumstances may demand. Specific instructions will 
be given when requested. You may rely upon the perfect confi¬ 
dence and full support of the department in the performance of 
your duties.” 3 The commission as brigadier-general was added, 
of course, to confer dignity upon the governor in his dealings 
with the officers of the army and to enable him to perform military 
functions and command military subordinates. 

This plenary power and plenary discretion were to be applied 
to subjects of no uniform political status. The people of Ten¬ 
nessee might, at this time, have been divided into at least three 
classes, and with each class a different course must be followed. 
To those whose loyalty to the Union remained unshaken, it was 
the duty of the governor, as the agent of the Federal executive, 
to secure the constitutional guaranty of a republican form of gov¬ 
ernment, to protect them in their persons and property, to restore 
to them the rights and privileges appertaining to loyal citizenship 
under the Constitution, and to cooperate with them in devising 
means to these ends. The active secessionists, on the other hand, 
were to be disarmed and brought into subjection to the Federal 
government, Constitution and laws—not, however, to be held as 
subjugated enemies, but with a view to their eventual voluntary 
acquiescence in the reestablishment of the old order and to their 
resumption of their duties as citizens. The third class consisted 
of those who were either honestly neutral or, at least, betrayed 
their leanings by no overt acts. These must be impressed with 
the ability and determination of the government to maintain itself 
against its enemies and finally to reassert its authority, while, at 
the same time, care must be taken not to excite their hostility or 
apprehension by unnecessarily harsh or illegal acts, violation of 
their constitutional prejudices, or threatened interference with 
rights or institutions to which they were devoted. 

To compass all this without shipwreck required no ordinary 
mind. There must be added the fact that, within the territory to 

8 O. R., series i, vol. ix, p. 396. See also O. R., series iii, vol. ii, p. 106. 


34 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


be administered by Governor Johnson, the armies of Halleck and 
Buell were operating in the face of the enemy. These generals, 
under the necessity of making everything bend to the success of 
their military plans, and accustomed by training and precedent to 
autocratic sway within the field of their commands, were little 
likely to defer to—indeed, were certain to view with impatience 
and intolerance—the projects of a civil officer whose position they 
regarded as at once an anomaly and an annoyance. A disquieting 
portent of trouble appeared at the very outset. On the 6th of 
March, Buell telegraphed from Nashville to General McClellan: 
“I have been concerned to hear that it is proposed to organize a 
provincial government for Tennessee. I think it would be inju¬ 
dicious at this time. It may not be necessary at all.” 4 

Not only administrative difficulties confronted the new gov¬ 
ernor. The constitutional validity of his position was seri¬ 
ously questioned. Its sponsors rested their case upon the fourth 
section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which provides 
that “the United States shall guarantee to every state in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each 
of them against invasion.” The Confederacy, they maintained, 
aimed to subvert the true republican form in favor of a dominant 
slave-holding aristocracy. The state, in the meaning of the Con¬ 
stitution, was, they said, its loyal citizens, regardless of their 
number. They could call upon the government to make good the 
guaranty, and the government was bound to respond. If they 
desired to remain in the Union, any who sought to force them 
out of it were invaders of their rights and privileges. 

Thaddeus Stevens, in a celebrated debate 5 in the Federal House 
of Representatives, developing his doctrine that the seceded states 
were, for all practical purposes, out of the Union, declared that, 
ipso facto, the Constitution could not extend to them; they were 
enemies to be conquered; the authority of a military governor 
could be derived from no clause of the Constitution, but existed 
only by the fiat of the military commander-in-chief. “If the 
Constitution still operates in those portions of the country, if it 
is not a question of military power,” he queried, “I want to know 

* 0 . R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. n. 

6 Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 3d session, pp. 239-244. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 35 

by what authority the president appoints military governors, di¬ 
rects what kind of men shall be elevated to office in the states, 
and surrounds the ballot-box with troops.” If the authority is 
the article cited above, “then, if the president happens to think 
that there is not a republican form of government in Tennessee, 
although nine out of ten of her people form a constitution, and 
pass laws under it, he has a right to place a governor there and 
supersede the government of the people.” 

A third view was advanced by Representative Olin of New 
York, who repudiated Stevens’ general thesis that the Constitu¬ 
tion did not extend to the seceded states, but agreed that the 
appointment of military governors was justified not by the guar¬ 
anty clause, but by military necessity. “It is the exercise of 
authority by the commanding general. ... He had undoubtedly 
a right, where military and where judicial authority was to be 
exercised, to delegate a judge, or to delegate a major-general 
for the exercise of that power. . . . Of that necessity the presi¬ 
dent is alone the judge, as the commander-in-chief of the army.” 

This would seem to be the sound view. Stevens’ objection to 
a sweeping interpretation of the guaranty clause is cogent. As 
he points out, the opinion of the president as to the existence of 
a republican form of government in a state is, by that construc¬ 
tion, made decisive in every case and under all circumstances, 
even in time of peace and with an all but unanimous conviction 
of its citizens to the contrary. But, under his paramount obliga¬ 
tion to maintain the Union, the president may, in case of un¬ 
doubted rebellion and attempted dissolution of the Federal bond, 
and by virtue of his military power as commander-in-chief of 
the army, and for the purpose of protecting the loyal citizens 
and the Union interests in a state and restoring them to their 
rights under the Constitution—not for the purpose of regulating 
a peaceable state government in accordance with his questionable 
conceptions of republicanism—utilize any machinery, not con¬ 
trary to the usages of war, to accomplish his end. 

This explanation, too, is perhaps the only one that will serve 
to answer the strictures of Jefferson Davis upon the military 
government in Tennessee. The government of the United States, 
he says, “with a powerful military force, planted itself at Nash- 


36 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


ville, the state capital. It refused to recognize the state govern¬ 
ment, or any organization under it, as having any existence, or 
to recognize the people otherwise than as a hostile community. 
It said to them, in effect: ‘I am the sovereign and you are the 
subjects. If you are stronger than I am, then drive me out of 
the state; if I am stronger than you are, then I demand an un¬ 
conditional surrender to my sovereignty.’ It is evident that the 
government of the United States was not there by the consent 
of those who were to be governed. It had not, therefore, any 
‘just powers’ of government within the state of Tennessee. . . . 
It is further evident that, by this action, the government of the 
United States denied the fundamental principle of popular liberty 
—that the people are the source of all political power. In this 
instance, it not only subverted the state government, but carried 
that subversion to the extent of annihilation. It, therefore, pro¬ 
ceeded to establish a new order of affairs, founded, not on the 
principle of sovereignty of the people, which was wholly rejected, 
but on the assumption of sovereignty in the United States gov¬ 
ernment. It appointed its military governor to be the head of 
the new order, and recognized no civil or political existence in 
any man, except some of its notorious adherents, until, betraying 
the state, he had taken an oath of allegiance to the sovereignty 
of the government of the United States.” 6 

It is no part of this treatise to debate the eternal question 
whether the “sovereignty of the people” on which the Constitution 
rested was the sovereignty of “the people of the United States” 
as a whole or of the people of the states separately considered. 
If, however, as is now practically if not morally established, the 
former is the correct view, the argument of Davis may be para¬ 
phrased into a statement of the case for the president. Charged 
with the mandate of the people of the United States to preserve 
the Union, he was bound to regard any state organization at¬ 
tempting to overthrow the Union by means at variance with both 
Federal and state law as having no existence, and all persons in 
arms against the government as hostile. Armed with the “just 
powers” derived from the consent of the majority of the sover¬ 
eign people at the election of i860, he came into Tennessee, by 

* Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. ii, pp. 455-458. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


37 

his agent, to vindicate by arms—the only means adequate to the 
magnitude of the resistance—“the fundamental principle of pop¬ 
ular liberty’ that the people of the nation “are the source of all 
political power,” and to reestablish, as soon as might be, the old 
order “founded on the principle of the sovereignty of the people.” 
He “recognized no civil or political existence” in any except the 
adherents of the government, because others had voluntarily re¬ 
nounced their rights and duties under the government and set 
about destroying it, and therefore could only be treated as rebels 
and enemies until, by an “oath of allegiance,” they expressed 
their readiness to subject themselves again to the Constitution 
and laws. 

To Johnson, a return to his own state as the agent of a gov¬ 
ernment repudiated and hated by a vast majority of the people 
must have promised difficulties which could have been overborne 
in his mind only by a lofty spirit of patriotism and the belief that 
he, better than any other man, could shorten and ameliorate the 
period of suffering for his former fellow-citizens, or by an al¬ 
most inhuman desire to revenge himself upon those who had 
wronged him and to gloat over their misfortunes. There was 
no lack of those who suggested the latter as the true motive, but, 
though rancor may have led him to look on the distress of the 
aristocrats with a certain satisfaction, love of his state and of 
the Union were deeper elements in his nature and he was incapa¬ 
ble of prostituting them to any low impulse of revenge. 7 

It was but natural that the fury of Tennessee secessionists 
should be concentrated upon the “traitor” from their midst who 
had become the instrument of their subjugation. Plots were 
formed against his life, guerilla bands hoped to intercept his train 
and take him South to answer for his “crimes,” his mail was 
filled with warnings and insults. “Go it Andy this is your day, 
But while you are going so high, you must not for get that evry 
dog has his day And the day is not far advanse when you will 
have your Just day, and that day cannot ever come untill 
you are tared and fethered and burnt. We are preparind a knise 

’Oration of George W. Jones at the unveiling of the Johnson monu¬ 
ment at Greenville (pamphlet), p. 1 3 - 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


38 

coat of feathers for that orcation, so when we have the chanse 
We will turn your black skin read, and then andy your black 
friends will not know you/’ threatened an anonymous corres¬ 
pondent . 8 A Confederate soldier wrote to his wife that men in 
the army had vowed to take the governor’s life and would do so 
if they were allowed to leave their commands . 9 At least one 
elaborate plan, sanctioned by General Bragg, to kidnap him by 
an organized force is reported . 10 

A letter from Buell which reached Johnson at Louisville on his 
way to the capital advised him what to expect. “The mass,” 
the general wrote, “are either inimical or overawed by the tyranny 
of opinion and power that has prevailed, or are waiting to 
see how matters turn out. They will acquiesce when they see 
that there is to be stability. You must not expect to be received 
with enthusiasm, but rather the reverse, and I would suggest to 
you to enter without any display .” 11 

The governor inaugurated his administration with a proclama¬ 
tion—later published as an “Address to the People”—explaining 
his position and indicating his policy 12 He referred to the happi¬ 
ness and prosperity of the people of Tennessee while in the 
Federal bond. “They felt their government only in the con¬ 
scious enjoyment of the benefits it conferred and the blessings it 
bestowed.” He stated the purpose of the war in the conciliatory 
words of the Crittenden resolution and asserted the duty of the 
president to protect and defend the Constitution and laws and 
to suppress insurrection. The present condition of the state was 
next reviewed. The state government had disappeared and the 
state was in ruin and disorder. “The executive has abdicated, 
the legislature has dissolved, the judiciary is in abeyance. . . . 
The archives have been desecrated; the public property stolen 

8 J. P-, vol. li, 1023. 

9 Ibid., vol. xvii, 3810. 

10 Annals of the Army of Tennessee, vol. i, p. 312. 

u O. R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 612. 

U J. P., vol. xvi, 3725 a, 3777 et seq.; Savage, The Life and Public 
Services of Andrew Johnson, pp. 250-253. This proclamation follows, in 
general, suggestions submitted to Johnson at his request by R. J. Meigs, 
a prominent Tennesseean, then clerk of the United States court in the 
District of Columbia. J. P., vol. xvi, 3764, 3765. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


39 


and destroyed; the vaults of the state bank violated and its 
treasuries robbed, including the funds carefully gathered and 
consecrated for all time to the instruction of our children. In 
such a lamentable crisis, the government of the United States 
could not be unmindful of its high constitutional obligation to 
guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of gov¬ 
ernment.” This obligation it is now attempting to discharge. 
“I have been appointed in the absence of the regular and estab¬ 
lished state authorities, as military governor for the time being, 
to preserve the public property of the state, to give the protection 
of law actively enforced to her citizens, and as speedily as may be 
to restore her government to the same condition as before the 
existing rebellion.” He invited all persons in sympathy with his 
purpose to cooperate with him in the work. 

Immediately to begin the restoration of order necessitated some 
irregularities in procedure. “I find most, if not all of the offices, 
both state and Federal, vacated either by actual abandonment, 
or by the action of the incumbents in attempting to subordinate 
their functions to a power in hostility to the fundamental law 
of the state, and subversive of her national allegiance. These 
offices must be filled temporarily, until the state shall be restored 
so far to its accustomed quiet, that the people can peaceably 
assemble at the ballot-box and select agents of their own choice. 
Otherwise anarchy would prevail, and no man’s life or property 
would be safe from the desperate and unprincipled. . . . 

“To the people themselves the protection of the government 
is extended. All their rights will be duly respected and their 
wrongs redressed when made known. Those who through the 
dark and weary nights of the rebellion have retained their alle¬ 
giance to the Federal government will be honored. The erring 
and misguided will be welcomed on their return. And while it 
may become necessary in vindicating the violated majesty of the 
law and reasserting its imperial sway to punish intelligent and 
conscious treason in high places, no merely retaliatory or vin¬ 
dictive policy will be adopted. To those especially who in private, 
unofficial capacity have assumed an attitude of hostility to the 
government, a full and complete amnesty for all past acts and 
declarations is ofifered, upon the one condition of their again 


40 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


yielding themselves peaceful citizens to the just supremacy of 
the laws. This I advise them to do for their own good, and 
for the peace and welfare of our beloved state.” 

This proclamation is striking in its conciliatory tone. The sole 
purpose of the military government is to aid in the prompt re¬ 
storation of the state to its former place in the Union . 13 If the 
people, though hitherto disloyal, will now consent to further that 
purpose, no unnecessary obstacles will be placed in their way. 
By implication, also, none of their institutions will be interfered 
with; the Federal government will neither dictate terms nor im¬ 
pose humiliating requirements of probation or atonement. The sole 
condition prescribed is submission to the Constitution and laws 
of the United States. A complete amnesty is especially offered 
to all private citizens who renounce their disloyalty and return 
to their allegiance. 

The spirit of the proclamation was in harmony not only with 
the well-known humane views of the president, but also with 
those of many prominent Union men in Tennessee, whose ob¬ 
servations had convinced them that the great mass of the people 
were either indifferent to the issues of the war and acquiesced 
in the proceedings of the active and dominant secessionists only 
to save themselves and their property from molestation, or were 
ignorant and led astray by misrepresentation of the purpose of 

15 “It (the proclamation) shows that at the time of his appointment as 
governor the restoration of the ancient government was still the object 
of President Lincoln’s exertion, and that Johnson’s military character 
was the use of the military power merely as an instrument to attain this 
end. That his appointment was made with the consent of the Senate 
first being had, proves conclusively that President Lincoln, as late as the 
spring of 1862, had not reached the point of appropriating to his sole 
use the powers involved in the work of reconstruction. Indeed, the 
natural inference is that no ‘Presidential Plan’ of reconstruction was yet 
present in the mind of the President, that ‘restoration’ of the old state 
governments was still the primary object of Federal endeavor, and that 
the part of the executive branch of the government was merely to perform 
such duties as would enable the restored sections to send senators and 
representatives to Washington, where the rest of restoration would be 
effected or denied by Congress, according to its decision upon the ad¬ 
mission or rejection of these members to their respective houses.” Eben 
Greenough Scott, Reconstruction during the Civil War, p. 319. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


4i 


the Federal government; that these would willingly submit to 
a Union that proved itself able to restore order and protect its 
citizens and animated by no lawless designs on their institutions, 
persons, or property. 14 This was General Buell’s opinion and 
controlled his policy while he retained command. Colonel Marc 
Mundy, whose military administration at Pulaski and elsewhere 
was highly successful, drew similar conclusions from his experi¬ 
ence. “In my intercourse with the people,” he testifies, “I found 
the masses had been largely duped by the leaders in being led 
to believe that our purpose in coming into Tennessee was to 
take away all their civil rights and destroy their domestic re¬ 
lations. . . . While they were generally rebels, they had been 
made so by falsehood. The policy I pursued made a practical 
contradiction to what had been taught them by their leaders, 
and the result in a short time was that they gained confidence 
in my course of procedure, and they themselves proposed that 
we should have what they called a county meeting, in order 
that all the people might hear my policy from my own lips. . . . 
A great many of the younger portion of the community in private 
conversation with me explained how they had been led away by 
the rebels assuring them that we were not only come there to 
take away their property, but to ravish their wives and daughters 
and do everything else that could be suggested that was bad. . . . 
I found the masses of the people of Tennessee were exceed¬ 
ingly ignorant, and depended entirely for their information upon 
their public speakers, the stump speakers, as they are called, 
which accounts for their gullibility by their leaders. . . . They 
expressed a great anxiety to return to their loyalty, . . . but 
expressed fears that some leading men in the community who 
were bitter secessionists would mark them and have them pun¬ 
ished by the Southern Confederacy. . . . We cannot expect any 
demonstrations of loyalty from the people there unless we can 
assure them of protection against the rebel armies and guerillas. 
. . . If they were to incautiously develop the Union sentiment, 
and they had no protection from our forces and our government, 
it would be to seal their doom !” 15 

14 J. P., vol. xx, 4615 et passim. 

18 O. R, series i, vol. xvi, part i, p. 633. 


42 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


For the actual execution of Governor Johnson’s restoration 
measures, the United States army furnished the tnotive power. 
His instructions from the war department advised him that the 
military commanders operating in Tennessee were directed to 
aid him in the performance of his duty and to detail an adequate 
force for the special purpose of a “governor’s guard,” to act 
under his orders. 16 In response to his request for more detailed 
information on this point, Secretary Stanton communicated to 
him the substance of an order to General Halleck to provide the 
necessary force, adding: “Important results are hoped from 
the measure, and it is important that the officer in command 
should be a discreet person, who would act efficiently and har¬ 
moniously with Governor Johnson.” 17 Johnson also addressed 
a similar inquiry to Buell, who replied that the officers exercis¬ 
ing separate commands under him in Tennessee would be ordered 
to honor within their respective limits any requisition made on 
them by the military governor to enforce his authority as such, 
and that, for Nashville, his orders sent directly to the provost- 
marshal would be executed by him without further reference. 
“Any requisitions which would involve the movement of troops,” 
the general concludes, “must of course be dependent on the plan 
of military operations against the enemy. 18 

The governor’s first concern was to select his lieutenants. 
Edward H. East was appointed secretary of state, Joseph S. 
Fowler, comptroller, Horace Maynard, attorney-general, and 
Edmund Cooper, private secretary and confidential agent. 19 

Since the influence of the secession leaders and the fear inspired 
by them were, in Johnson’s opinion, the chief hindrance of the de¬ 
velopment of outspoken Unionism among the people, he proceeded 
directly to deal with such of them as remained within his reach. 
His purpose was to have no one in authority or eminent position 
who was not an avowed friend of the Union. The oath of 
allegiance was accordingly tendered (March 25) to the mayor, 
Richard B. Cheatham, and the city council of Nashville. They 

18 Ibid., vol. ix, p. 396. 

37 Ibid., vol. x, part ii, pp. 56-58. 

w Ibid., p. 47; J. P., vol. xvii, 3814. 

38 Nashville Union, April 27, 1862. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


43 


refused it on the ground that the oath required by the state 
constitution applied only to state and county, not to corporation 
officers. The governor promptly declared their offices vacant 
and filled them himself by appointment, pending an election. The 
new city council imposed the oath on all municipal officers, in¬ 
cluding the board of education and the school-teachers. On the 
29th, ex-Mayor Cheatham was arrested for disloyalty and utter¬ 
ing treasonable and seditious language against the government 
of the United States, giving counsel, aid and comfort to its 
enemies, proposing to invite Jefferson Davis to make Nashville 
his official residence, and other offenses, and was imprisoned 
in the penitentiary. Other prominent secessionists were similarly 
served, the arrests being made by the provost-marshal on the 
warrant of the governor. Among the victims were ex-Governor 
Neil S. Brown, Judge Guild of the chancery court, and the 
president and cashier of the Union Bank of Nashville. 20 Warrants 
were also sent to the military commanders of various posts in 
the state, the use of them being sometimes left to their dis¬ 
cretion. Colonel Mundy reported that, for Lebanon and 
vicinity, he favored leaving as many cases as possible until 
the civil courts^ were restored, to allay any apprehension of 
undue exercise of the military power. 21 

Then came the turn of the press. Military supervision was 
extended over it. The Daily Times and the Banner were sup¬ 
pressed in April and the editor of the latter imprisoned. The 
same month, S. C. Mercer, a vehement Kentucky Unionist, 
started an administration paper, the Daily Union, which received 
the support of the government patronage. The plants of the 
Gazette and Patriot and the Methodist and Baptist publishing 
houses were also seized and closed for propagating disloyalty. 22 

Johnson next laid his hand upon the clergy. On the 17th 
of June, six ministers, who were accused of preaching treason 
from their pulpits, were summoned before him and requested 
to take the oath. After consideration, time for which was 
allowed them at their request, all refused. Five of them were 

*J. P., vol. xvii, 3848 et passim; Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, pp. 597, 764. 

*J. P., vol. xviii, 4091-4094. 

“ Annual Cyclopedia, 1662, p. 766. 


44 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


promptly thrust into prison, the governor ordering that no 
visitors be admitted to comfort or lionize them and that no special 
favors be granted them. Shortly afterwards, they were sent 
south, beyond the Federal lines. The sixth, who was in feeble 
health, was paroled- 23 “These assumed ministers of Christ,” 
Johnson wrote, “have done more to poison and corrupt the 
female mind of this community than all others, in fact changing 
their entire character from that of women and ladies to fanatics 
and fiends. One of these very ministers, in leaving here for 
Louisville, told those who were collected to see him off: ‘Don’t 
forget your God, Jeff Davis, and the Southern Confederacy.’ 
This is a specimen of the ‘blameless course’ pursued by these 
traitors and hypocrites, who, in the language of Pollock, are 
‘wearing the livery of heaven to serve the devil in.’ ” 24 In October, 
several of the ministers were admitted to parole. 

The restoration of the civil law was among the most important 
of the military governor’s duties, and he took immediate steps 
to this end, although but the slightest progress was possible in 
1862. In the spring of that year, the Federal lines extended 
scarcely further south than the Cumberland river, from Nash¬ 
ville to Clarksville, and even this territory they held by pre¬ 
carious tenure. Nashville and the district to the north of it 
were comparatively quiet, but soon again to be thrown into 
disorder by Bragg’s dash into Kentucky. The capture of 
Memphis by the river fleet on the 7th of June and the presence 
of a powerful Federal garrison there extended the Union con¬ 
trol down the Mississippi to that city, but the surrounding 
county was the scene of turbulence and guerilla raids and de¬ 
veloped no considerable loyalty until the end of the war. The 
Confederates retained their hold upon East Tennessee until 
September, 1863, and, even after that, the Union occupation 
afforded little security beyond the vicinity of the post garrisons. 
Southern Middle Tennessee was the battlefield of the great 
armies of the west in every year of the war, and Nashville 
itself was in a state of siege during the entire summer of 1862, 
and threatened by Hood as late as the winter of 1864. Under 

“Nashville Union, July 5; New York Tribune, July 4. 

*J. P-, vol. xxiv, 5281; vol. xxvi, 5705, et passim. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


45 


such conditions, there was slight encouragement to attempt any¬ 
thing in the way of judicial reorganization. 

In early April, 1862, the county and circuit courts opened for 
business at various points in Middle Tennessee under the pro¬ 
tection of the army. To avoid all unnecessary annoyance and 
delay and to win for them all the popular support possible, 
Johnson did not require the officers to take the oath of allegiance. 25 
On the 13th of May, the United States circuit court sat at Nash¬ 
ville. Judge Catron, in his charge to the grand jury, admonished 
them to ferret out and indict all persons guilty of aiding and 
abetting the marauders who infested the state. 26 

Besides the constant menace of the enemy, the civil courts 
were subjected to the discomfort of being crowded cheek by 
jowl with the military tribunals under direct control of the 
generals of the army. Two rival systems of law attempted to 
operate side by side and under the most trying conditions. Fric¬ 
tion was inevitable, and increased to an alarming degree until, 
in March, 1863, the war department felt compelled to take up 
the matter and prescribe detailed rules for the guidance of 
General Rosecrans, then commanding the department of the 
Cumberland, in his relations with the civil authorities. 27 As 
these instructions may be regarded as expressing the official at¬ 
titude of the government on the subjects of which they treat, 
it may be well to anticipate by considering them here. 

To the provisional state government, writes General Halleck, 
must be left “the trial and adjudication of all civil and criminal 
cases cognizable under the laws of the state, and to the courts 
of the United States, reestablished there, must be left all cases 
which belong to their jurisdiction, under the laws of the United 
States. But military offenses, that is, offenses under the Rules 
and Articles of War and under the 'common law and usages of 
war/ are not, as a general rule, cognizable by the civil courts, 
but must be tried and punished by military tribunals. It is 
not always easy to accurately define the dividing line between 
these two classes of jurisdictions—the civil and military—for 

* Ibid., vol. xvii, 3905 , 39o6. 

28 Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, p. 765. 

v O. R., series iii, vol. iii p. 77 - 


46 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


in a country militarily occupied, or in which war is actually 
waged, this line may vary according to the peculiar circumstances 
of the case. Thus, robbery, theft, arson, murder, etc, are or¬ 
dinarily offenses cognizable by military tribunals. It is a well- 
established principle that a non-combatant inhabitant of a country 
militarily occupied, who robs military stores and munitions, burns 
store-houses, bridges, etc., used for military purposes, or, as 
military insurgent, bears arms and takes life, may be tried and 
punished by a military court.” Again, where there are no civil 
courts in operation, the military must take cognizance of all classes 
of cases. Courts-martial, it is true, are restricted to cases aris¬ 
ing under the Rules and Articles of War, but military commis¬ 
sions—“courts of general military jurisdiction under the common 
law of war”—may be created to deal with other offenses. 

This letter, the most explicit the government could give its 
agents, has been considered at length for the purpose of suggest¬ 
ing how much remained, after everything possible had been said, 
to perplex a conscientious official. As the writer says, the 
line between the two jurisdictions might vary according to 
circumstances, and in Tennessee new circumstances were de¬ 
veloped almost daily. The military commanders were determined 
to maintain the prestige of their authority and, should a case 
arise cognizable apparently under either civil or martial law, 
though the moral and political advantage of exalting the civil 
jurisdiction might be apparent, the general would be loth to let 
the offender out of his clutches. Halleck’s letter did not unravel 
the legal snarl at Nashville. Elsewhere, until 1864, there were 
few courts and these intermittent and of little value to citizens. 
In Memphis, from the spring of 1863, the civil and criminal 
law was administered by commissions of citizens, created by 
the commanding general. 

At Shiloh, on the 7th of April, 1862, Grant drove Beauregard’s 
army across the Tennessee river, and the entire state, except 
East Tennessee, was freed from any considerable Confederate 
force. This victory gave a tremendous impetus to Union senti¬ 
ment and severely shook the faith of the secessionists. By the 
1st of May, the disorder caused by the advance of the Federal 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


47 


army and the panic in Nashville had largely subsided. The 
circuit, chancery, and magistrates’ courts were in daily session at 
the capital. Business had been brought to a standstill by the 
military operations, the closing of regular channels of trade, the 
carrying off of the bank funds, the depreciation of the Tennessee 
bank bills, and the collapse of public confidence; but here also 
conditions were improving. Northern cotton-buyers and specu- - 
lators followed the army and United States money soon became 
plentiful. Cotton rose from sixteen and seventeen cents in specie 
or United States treasury notes in April to from nineteen to 
twenty-one cents before the middle of May, and, as the price 
of necessaries was high and the cotton-growers needed money, 
their reluctance to sell was soon overcome. The shipment of 
cotton from Tennessee from the opening of trade on the nth 
of March until the ioth of May was roughly estimated at over 
3,600 bales; 700 bales during the first ten days of May. The 
Nashville Union figured that the season’s shipment would reach 
18,000 bales, and that the figures would have been larger but 
for the burning of several thousand bales by Confederate troops 
and marauding parties with the design of breaking up the trade. 
The trains on the Louisville-Nashville railroad made daily trips. 
The houses and stores deserted in the panic-stricken evacuation of 
February rapidly filled; real estate commanded good prices; state 
currency and bank notes began to appreciate in value. In a 
word, the uninterrupted success of the Federal arms and the 
probability that the expulsion of the Confederates was final con¬ 
tributed to secure acquiescence in an accomplished fact and a 
return to normal conditions. 28 

Politically, the prevalence of this feeling was evinced by a 
series of mass meetings arranged by Union sympathizers through¬ 
out Middle Tennessee, with the support of the government. The 
most important of these 29 assembled at Nashville on the 12th of 
May, pursuant to a call issued by prominent Union men of the 
city to their fellow-citizens of the state who favored “the restora¬ 
tion of the former relations of this state to the Federal Union.” 
Ex-Governor William B. Campbell, the chairman of the meet- 

* Nashville Union , May 1, May 10, 1862. 

M Ibid., May 13; Moore, Rebellion Record , vol. v, doc. 335. 


48 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


ing, made an earnest, conciliatory speech, appealing to all to re¬ 
turn to their old allegiance. “We wish,” he said, “to welcome 
back all our deluded fellow-citizens cordially. The government 
intends no sweeping confiscation, nor wild turning loose of 
slaves against the revolted states. It designs no infringement 
on the rights of property. ... We bear no malice toward any 
one, but deep sympathy for the deluded. . . . The Federal gov¬ 
ernment will pursue a kind, liberal, and benevolent policy to¬ 
ward the people of the South, to bring them to the Union.” 
The meeting authorized the chairman to appoint a “state central 
Union committee” to communicate with the friends of the Union 
in various parts of the state, and a committee to consider the 
condition of Tennessee prisoners and arrange terms for their 
release and return to their allegiance; resolved that “the social, 
political, and material interests of the people of Tennessee and 
the safety and welfare of our friends and relatives now in the 
Confederate army imperiously demand the restoration of the state 
to her former relations with the Federal Union”; and approved 
Governor Johnson’s proclamation of the 18th of March and his 
subsequent policy. Johnson himself addressed the meeting. There 
can be no doubt that it was inspired by him and that Campbell’s 
speech was a statement of his official policy at that time. Other 
meetings revealed the same guiding spirit and indorsed the 
Nashville resolutions. 

These popular expressions of generous and active loyalty were, 
in part, spontaneous, but in part, also, they may have been art¬ 
fully contrived to set the stage for the first act of the govern¬ 
or’s reconstruction drama. As a test of public opinion, an 
election was held on the 226. of May for judge of the state 
circuit court in the district containing Nashville. The experi¬ 
ment ended disastrously in the election of the anti-administration 
candidate, Turner S. Foster, a man with a record of open dis¬ 
loyalty, by a majority of nearly 200 votes, though the Union 
vote of 1,000 compared favorably with the 300 recorded against 
separation in 1861. The postlude was farcical. The governor, 
assuming to comply with the forms of law, gave Foster his com¬ 
mission, and the same day had him arrested and imprisoned 
as disloyal and delegated his defeated opponent to perform the 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


49 


duties of the office. 30 The administration had miscalculated the 
temper of the people and had sustained a decided check, and 
all reconstruction measures were, for the time, abandoned. This 
was the more necessary as the attention of the governor was 
now fully occupied with military matters. His labors during 
these first three months had resulted only in restoring order 
and intimidating disloyalists in Nashville by force. 

80 Nashville Union, September 20, 1863. 


CHAPTER IV 


The Defense of Nashville 

The concentration of the Union and Confederate armies on 
the Tennessee river for the great battle at Shiloh early in 
April stripped Middle Tennessee of any considerable bodies of 
troops. Only small garrisons remained to hold the principal 
towns for the Union. 

No sooner had General Buell's army moved westward to join 
Grant, than a new phase of warfare, of the utmost importance 
in the military history of the state, developed. Detached bodies 
of horsemen, splendidly mounted, suddenly infested the country, 
spreading terror and ruin everywhere, burning houses, barns 
and cotton, appropriating stores, cutting off supplies, tearing 
up railroad tracks, destroying telegraph wires, conscripting men 
and horses, and visiting summary punishment upon Union 
adherents. The success of their operations and the enforcement 
by them of the conscription law brought them plenty of recruits, 
and, as the possibilities of this kind of warfare for holding the 
border states for the Confederacy became apparent, the various 
bands, at first acting independently, were combined and directed 
harmoniously under brilliant, capable leaders like Forrest and 
Morgan. So utilized, they became in the highest degree formi¬ 
dable. ‘ They descended suddenly upon Federal garrisons, cap¬ 
tured them, and dashed away before the pursuit could be 
organized. The Union cavalry was fully occupied in covering 
the army and protecting the supply trains in a hostile country, 
and could not be spared for operations of this sort, and the 
active Confederates eluded with ridiculous ease the slow-moving 
infantry sent after them. Whole regiments were cut off and 
captured and immense quantities of property destroyed- 

Much warmth of denunciation and defense has been expended 
on the “guerillas” and their leaders. Without attempting to 
treat the subject here, it may be said that they constituted the 
most effective weapon the South could possibly have contrived 
for use in the border states, and a legitimate one, so long as 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


5i 

they operated in accordance with the laws of war. The Federal 
government was forced, in opposition to its original theory, 
to treat the Confederate armies as belligerents, and, upon the 
same necessity, a regularly organized force like that of Forrest, 
though acting independently, would seem entitled to similar 
recognition; for both Forrest and Morgan held commissions 
from the Confederate war department and, generally speaking, 
kept their men well in hand. The worst outrages—and there 
appear to have been many—may be charged to the small ir¬ 
regular bands of undisciplined freebooters, of intermittent exist¬ 
ence, that assembled to rob and maltreat peaceable citizens and 
destroy property from motives of revenge, and dissolved at 
the approach of danger. For these, the real guerillas, in the strict 
sense of the term, little excuse can be offered. Whatever their 
merits and crimes, the “guerillas” were by far the greatest 
obstacle to Johnson’s success in Tennessee. 1 

Buell’s departure left only a few scattered Union regiments 
in Middle Tennessee. The garrison at Nashville was small. 
Only the strategic points could be held; everywhere else the 
“guerillas” ran riot. The capital was exposed to attack from 
the south and east, and Johnson felt grave apprehension for its 
safety. He telegraphed Stanton that it had been left almost 
defenseless. At least one more complete brigade was needed. 
The regiments stationed at Camp Chase, Ohio, and Lexington, 
Kentucky, should be sent to Nashville immediately. This, too, 
was the opinion of General Dumont, the commander of the 
garrison. 2 The force of this appeal impressed Stanton. “You 
can appreciate,” he wired Halleck at St. Louis, “the consequence 
of any disaster at Nashville, and are requested to take im¬ 
mediate measures to secure it against all danger.” 3 Buell, 
replying to Halleck’s inquiries, scouted the idea that the enemy 
would attack Nashville in great force; but a dash with fifteen 
thousand men he thought it well to guard against. 4 

1 There are many accounts of the exploits of the Confederate cavalry 
in Tennessee— e.g. Wyeth, Life of Forest; Duke, History of Morgan's 
Cavalry; Bennett H. Young, Confederate Wizards of the Saddle. See 
also Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, pp. 767 et seq. 

a O. R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 76. 

3 Ibid., p. 79; J. P., vol. xvii, 3846. 

* 0 . R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 79. 


52 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


The months of April and May, after the battle of Shiloh, 
were consumed by a slow and cautious advance of Halleck’s 
entire army on Corinth. 5 The capture of that post meant the 
control of the railroad connecting Memphis and the west with 
Richmond and Charleston. A division of Buell’s army, under 
General Mitchel, had previously been detached to operate in 
southern Middle Tennessee, and, instead of accompanying the 
main force to Shiloh, had moved by way of Murfreesboro and 
Shelbyville into northern Alabama and struck the Memphis- 
Charleston railroad at Tuscumbia. The plan was for Buell, 
after the fall of Corinth, to follow the railroad eastward from 
that point, join Mitchel at Tuscumbia, and thus clear Middle 
Tennessee of Confederates. . Long before this could be accom¬ 
plished, however, the Confederate pressure upon Mitchel be¬ 
came insupportable. He was in an advanced and exposed posi¬ 
tion, his communications were threatened, and, to enable him 
to maintain his ground, every available regiment left in 
Tennessee had to be sent forward to him. One went from 
Nashville, and Lebanon and Murfreesboro were also stripped. 

This threw Johnson into an agony of alarm. Not only did 
Nashville seem exposed a prey to any chance attack, but, 
politically, the withdrawal of the troops reacted disastrously 
upon the Union movement which had promised so well. It 
amounted, Johnson wrote to Maynard at Washington, substan¬ 
tially to surrendering the country to the rebels. “My under¬ 
standing was that I was sent here to accomplish a certain purpose. 
If the means are withheld, it is better to desist from any further 
efforts. . . . The effect of removing the troops is visible in the 
face of every secessionist.” 6 On the same day, he sent vehement 
dispatches to Stanton and Buell, expressing his fears and begging 
for soldiers. 7 Buell replied reassuringly that his intention was 
only to defend Nashville and Middle Tennessee in a more 
advanced position and that the regiments withdrawn would be 
replaced by new ones. 8 

"For Halleck’s original plan of campaign, see letter of Assistant Sec¬ 
retary of War Thomas A. Scott to Stanton, Stanton Papers, February 17, 
1862. (Library of Congress). 

* 0 . R., series i, vol x, part ii, pp. 126 180; J. P., vol. xix, 4346. 

7 J. P., vol. xviii, 4110. 

"Ibid., 4112. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


53 


The promise, however, could not be kept. Mitchel was in 
dire straits at Tuscumbia. A constantly augmenting Confederate 
force at Chattanooga was preparing to turn his left and strike 
at Nashville. Nearly half the rations sent him by Halleck had 
been destroyed to save them from the enemy. On the 24th, 
he began his retreat, and the relief regiment at Nashville was 
hurried to his aid. On the 26th, Johnson telegraphed a bitter 
protest directly to the president, complaining of “petty 
jealousies and contests between generals wholly incompetent to 
discharge the duties assigned them.” He insinuated that Buell’s 
military dispositions were unnecessary. 9 His strictures were 
communicated by Stanton through Halleck to Buell, who became 
incensed in his turn. “The disposition I have made of troops 
in Middle Tennessee,” he replied to Halleck, “is absolutely 
necessary for its defense and to support Mitchel. I consider 
this a matter of far greater moment than the gratification of 
Governor Johnson, whose views upon the matter are absurd.” 10 

On the whole, the facts seem to vindicate the judgment of 
Halleck and Buell. The failure of his political designs was a 
bitter disappointment to Johnson and his imperious will chafed 
at any interference with his plans and closed his eyes to the 
considerations which animated the generals. That the em¬ 
barrassments of the government impeded reconstruction is cer¬ 
tain, but it is unlikely that much could have been accomplished 
at this time, under even the most favorable circumstances. 
However that may be, Mitchel’s necessities were imperative, 
and the army in the west was facing the crucial Corinth cam¬ 
paign, the issue of which was considered dubious. “Troops 
cannot be detached from here on the eve of a great battle,” 
Halleck apprised Stanton. “We are now at the enemy’s throat, 
and cannot release our great grasp to pare his toe-nails.” 11 
When his two generals agreed as to the course to be pursued, 
Lincoln was not disposed to interfere. “General Halleck under¬ 
stands better than we can here, and he must be allowed to 
control in that quarter,” he answered Johnson, at the same 

* 0 . R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 129; J. P., vol. xviii, 4131. 

” 0 . R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 129. 

“Ibid., p. 128. 


54 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


time urging him to communicate fully and freely with Halleck. 12 
That Lincoln and Stanton should have devoted so much atten¬ 
tion to the views of a civil official and should have troubled 
the generals to justify their contrary policy is striking evidence 
of their respect for Johnson’s opinion and of the president’s 
longing for the political restoration of the border states. 

The Confederates abandoned Corinth on the 29th of May. 
On the 10th of June, Buell began his long delayed advance 
along the line of the Memphis-Charleston railroad, with 
Chattanooga, the junction of that line with the roads from 
Louisville by way of Nashville to Montgomery, Charleston, 
and Savannah, as his objective point. Halleck’s plan probably 
contemplated driving the Confederates from East Tennessee 
by the simultaneous movements of Buell northward from 
Chattanooga and of General George Morgan southward from 
Cumberland Gap. Johnson had urged this in a letter to Halleck 
on the 5th of June, and the latter had replied: “East Tennessee 
will very soon be attended to. We drive off the main body 
of the enemy before we can attack his other corps. . . . Every¬ 
thing is working well and in a few weeks I hope there will be 
no armed rebel in Tennessee. 13 

The plan was thwarted by the prompt action of the Con¬ 
federate General Bragg, who hastened northward with an army 
that had been forming in Mississippi, seized Chattanooga before 
Buell could establish himself there, and developed a strong 
line of defense extending to Knoxville. Buell faced him at 
Battle Creek, Huntsville, and McMinnville. 

The advance of the Union army had been impeded at every 
turn by the enemy’s cavalry and, during the remainder of the 
summer, they distracted the Federal authorities in the state 
and disheartened all friends of the Union by a constant suc¬ 
cession of the most daring and successful operations, directed 
particularly at the lines of communication and railroad depots 
of the Union army. On the 5th of July, Lebanon was taken; 
on the 13th, Forrest captured Murfreesboro with its entire 
garrison. John Morgan swept the whole interior of the state 

12 J. P., vol. xviii, 4151; Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. vii, p. 150. 

13 J. P-» vol. xx, 4615, 4622. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


55 

and surrounded Nashville. Toward the end of the month, the 
communication of the capital with the North by railroad and 
telegraph was completely cut off. The citizens were almost in a 
panic. Some of the streets were barricaded on the night of 
the 21 st, at the rumor of an immediate attack by Forrest. 
The fortifying of the city was pushed with the utmost vigor. 
A thousand slaves of secessionist owners were impressed for 
the work, and their masters were required to provide them 
with tools. The arrival of reinforcements temporarily relieved 
the situation, but, by the middle of August, the Confederate 
net was again drawn around the city. Supplies could not 
be secured and the price of necessaries rose to an unprecedented 
degree. 1 ^ On the 22d, Morgan swooped down on Gallatin, 
an important post on the Louisville-Nashville railroad, the 
capital’s channel of communication with the North, captured 
General R. W. Johnson, in command there, killed or captured 
more than half his eight hundred soldiers, and tore up the 
rails. The whole line of the Memphis-Chattanooga railroad 
in Buell’s rear was threatened. In the west, guerillas swarmed 
along the banks of the Mississippi river and attacked the 
shipping, firing from the shore with musketry and light field 
artillery. On the 25th of September, General Sherman, com¬ 
manding at Memphis, burned the town of Randolph in re¬ 
taliation for an attack on a steamer at that point, and ordered 
that, whenever a boat was fired on, ten disloyal families should 
be expelled from Memphis. 15 

In this crisis of affairs, Governor Johnson’s personality 
loomed large. All his native vigor, courage, and pugnacity 
were aroused. The fate of his state, he believed, was now in 
the balance, and every nerve must be strained to save her. 
Convinced of the proper course to be followed and intolerant 
of opposition or delay, he speedily involved himself in a suc¬ 
cession of violent controversies with Halleck, Buell, the post 
commanders at Nashville, and their subordinates. While Nash¬ 
ville was not immediately beleaguered, tolerable harmony had 
been maintained between the civil and military authorities, but 

14 O. R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 147 - 

* Annual Cyclopedia, 1662, p. 767. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


56 

the actual rubbing of elbows in cramped quarters revealed all 
the defects of divided responsibility. The generals regarded the 
governor’s meddling with ill-concealed anger, in which an ele¬ 
ment of contempt was mingled, and had no thought of yielding 
an inch to his imperious will. He, in turn, did not hesitate to 
assert their incompetence, question their bravery, impugn their 
motives, and hint at secret collusion with the enemy. 

As early as the 17th of June, Johnson had addressed a com¬ 
plaining letter to Halleck. 16 He had been assured by the presi¬ 
dent and secretary of war, he said, that he would be sustained 
in his efforts to restore Tennessee to its former position in 
the Union, and had been authorized to call on General Halleck 
for an adequate force to carry out all measures he might devise 
to that end. So far, he had not done so, for fear of appearing 
importunate or unduly disposed to exercise power. Now, how¬ 
ever, he felt bound to say that the military policy pursued in the 
state had kept alive a rebellious spirit that might otherwise 
have been crushed. All efforts to secure a sound reaction of 
public sentiment had been thwarted by the constant disputes 
of military officials. Buell’s assistant adjutant-general, for ex¬ 
ample, had assumed more power than Buell himself would 
pretend to, and the provost-marshal at Nashville was “in direct 
complicity with the secessionists of this city and a sympathizer 
with the master-spirits engaged in this rebellion.” “The demon- 
trations which have been made upon lower East Tennessee, 
causing the people to manifest their Union feelings and senti¬ 
ments and then to be abandoned, have been crushing, ruinous 
to thousands. I trust in God that when another advance is 
made upon< that section of the state, ou'r position may be 
maintained, at least until arms can be placed in the hands of 
the people to defend themselves against their relentless 
oppressors.” 

The marauding of the guerillas enraged and alarmed John¬ 
son, and he besought Stanton for cavalry to disperse them. 
Stanton had none to spare, but he authorized the governor to 
raise two regiments and he set about it with vigor. 17 Early in 

18 O. R., series i, vol, xvi, part i, p. 36; J. P., vol. xxi, 4753. 

17 O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 47. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


57 


July, he received word from General Boyle at Louisville that 
two thousand Confederate cavalry had entered Kentucky to 
strike the Louisville-Nashville railroad, and that help must come 
from Tennessee. 18 The safety of Nashville and Middle 
Tennessee was involved in the maintenance of this line. Johnson 
bent every energy to reinforce Boyle, but his demands upon 
Captain Greene, the assistant adjutant-general, met with a re¬ 
pulse. His anger blazed in a letter to the president, demanding 
that he be sustained. Greene, he said, had not only refused to 
cooperate with him, but, despite the dispatches from Louisville, 
had ordered some troops elsewhere and located others contrary 
to his wishes. He was probably in connivance with the traders, 
and Johnson proposed to arrest him and send him out of the 
reach of bad influences. 19 The never-failing tact and considera¬ 
tion with which Lincoln treated his subordinates in delicate 
situations graces his reply. “Do you not, my good friend, per¬ 
ceive that what you ask is simply to put you in command in 
the West? I do not suppose you desire this. You only wish to 
control in your own localities; but this you must know may 
derange all other posts.” 29 He urged upon both Johnson and 
Halleck a free exchange of views. “The governor is a true 
and valuable man—indispensable to us in Tennessee,” he wrote 
to Halleck. 21 

The fall of Murfreesboro on the 13th of July brought the 
danger to the doors of Nashville. An attack was expected at 
any hour. If one is made, Johnson wired Halleck, “we will 
give them as warm a reception as we know how, and, if forced to 
yield, will leave them a site/ 22 The garrison was considerably 
depleted and rations were low. On the 21st, Forrest penetrated 
to within six miles of the city. General Nelson, in charge of 
the defense, had no cavalry and could only remain behind his 
fortifications while the enemy overran the surrounding country. 
With cavalry, he reported to Buell on the 29th, he could have 

M Ibid., p. 118. 

12 Ibid. 

20 Ibid., p. 122. 

21 Ibid. 

22 Ibid. D. 142. 


58 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


attacked and destroyed Morgan and Forrest separately at any 
time within the past five days, but their junction would give 
them a picked army of four thousand. The disorder and con¬ 
flict of authority had produced chaos. “You ordered me to 
assume the command. I desire to know of whom, of what, 
for nobody obeys. The result will be the utter destruction of our 
commands.” 23 Brownlow wrote from Philadelphia: “The in¬ 
dications are that the rebels will have Tennessee and Kentucky. 
I told a crowd of gentlemen here that, if I were Governor John¬ 
son, I would resign on the ground of not being backed up 
by the government. The administration seems to look only to 
Richmond, and neglects every other point. I am out of patience, 
and feel like breaking out upon the government.” 24 The feeling 
was general that Buell had lost his grip on the situation. He 
seemed bewildered by the overthrow of his original plans 
and the activity of the enemy. The slowness of his 
movements and the inefficiency of his dispositions to check 
Morgan and Forrest were cited against him at Washington, 
and Halleck was asked (August) to suggest some one to suc¬ 
ceed him. 25 Johnson himself denounced Buell as incompetent 
and urged that General George H. Thomas be appointed in his 
place to undertake the redemption of East Tennessee. 26 Thomas, 
however, begged that his name be not considered, and assigned 
reasons for his reluctance to assume the command which, 
whether intentionally or not, contained a covert reproof for the 
governor. “We have never yet had a commander of any ex¬ 
pedition,” he wrote to Johnson, “who has been allowed to work 
out his own policy, and it is utterly impossible for the most 
able general in the world to conduct a campaign with success, 
when his hands are tied, as it were, by the constant apprehension 
that his plans may be interfered with at any moment either 
by higher authority directly or through the influence of others 
who may have other plans and other motives of policy.” 27 

* Ibid., p. 226. 

24 J. P., vol. xxii, 5048. 

* O. <R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 314. 

*J. P., vol. xxiv, 5448. 

27 Ibid. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


59 


Major W. H. Sidell, who succeeded Greene as assistant 
adjutant-general at Nashville, gives the substance of a con¬ 
versation with Johnson at about this time, which is the best 
of evidence of the governor’s keenness of insight in accurately 
gauging the political and military situation. 28 He expressed 
himself as convinced that the Confederates would soon make an 
attempt to regain Tennessee and that, in their project, the pos¬ 
session of the capital was a necessary incident. Their success 
would injure the Union cause both materially and morally. They 
could count on the support not only of avowed adherents, but 
also of many secret sympathizers in the state, particularly if such 
support entailed no very considerable risks; but the probability 
of sacrifices would deter most of these lukewarm friends. The 
best policy for the government, then, was to convince them that 
there was to be no easy Confederate triumph. This could be 
done by manifesting a determination to resist to the last extrem¬ 
ity. During the last siege of Nashville, a secret committee of 
citizens had sent an appeal to their friends in the attacking army 
to abandon the assault, as the defenders had resolved to destroy 
the city rather than surrender. Therefore, the governor urged, let 
the fortifications be completed and extended by contraband labor, 
and the enemy would shrink before the magnitude of the task 
confronting them. 

Finally, on the 21st of August, Bragg sprang the surprise he 
had been preparing for Buell. Issuing suddenly from Chatta¬ 
nooga, he marched around the left flank of his adversary into 
Kentucky, and, amusing Buell with a powerful demonstration in 
the direction of McMinnville to deceive the latter into thinking 
that his objective was Nashville, he struck the Louisville-Nash- 
ville railroad, Buell’s line of communication and supply, at Mun- 
fordsville, the principal station between those two cities, and 
captured it with its entire defending force of about forty-five 
hundred men (September 14). 29 At the same time, General 

28 Ibid., vol. xxv, 5475 ; O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 242. 

28 “Thus sacrificing precious time which should have been devoted to 
more important ends.” Nathaniel S. Shaler, The Kentucky Campaign of 
1862, in Campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee, 1862-1864. Papers of the 
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. vii, p. 212. “General 


6o 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Kirby Smith, from Knoxville, flanked General G. H. Morgan 
by a similar manoeuvre and marched westward to join Bragg for 
a joint attack on Louisville. 30 At first Buell was perplexed as 
to the purpose of the enemy. He moved his army in an arc, 
attempting to cover Nashville and the railroad. Convinced, at 
last, that Bragg’s destination was Louisville, he followed hotly 
in pursuit along the line of the railroad, and when Bragg, ap¬ 
parently wishing to avoid a battle until his junction with Smith, 
turned off eastward, threw himself into the city. 31 

The apparent failure of Buell’s strategy and the consequent 
retrograde movement of his army from Huntsville to Louisville 
precipitated the long impending rupture between him and Johnson. 
On the 30th of August, he had sent the governor a dispatch, 
explaining and defending his course. His army, he said, was 
reduced by detailing garrisons and forces to protect his communi¬ 
cations and by other causes to twenty or thirty thousand men. 
Bragg had from forty to sixty thousand. By falling back along 
his line of communications, the conditions would be exactly re¬ 
versed: he would pick up additional troops, which, with rein¬ 
forcements coming from Corinth, would swell his force to fifty 
thousand, while Bragg must constantly lose strength as he 

Buell’s command was in Southern Tennessee, and he had to apprehend 
that it might move to the northeast into Central Kentucky. By moving 
towards Nashville he probably thought to secure a chance to beat Buell’s 
force in detail before that general had concentrated his army. Moreover, 
by moving in that direction, he could the more quickly obtain possession 
of the Louisville-Nashville railway which was Buell’s most valuable 
line of communication with the north. He appears to have had some 
hopes of capturing Nashville, a success which would have enabled him 
at once to replace the Confederate government of Tennessee in its capital 
and to secure a strongly fortified post which would "serve to protect his 
rear during his efforts in Kentucky.” Ibid., p. 21,1. 

*® Kirby Smith designed, perhaps, to guard the main column of Bragg’s 
army. Ibid. 

“ “He conceived his errand in Kentucky to be partly of a political nature 
... to place the long wandering Confederate government of the state in 
office at Frankfort. He expected also a support from the people of the 
commonwealth and waited for them to flock to his standard.” Ibid., p. 214. 
Colonel Henry Stone, in an article on The Operations of Buell in 
Kentucky and Tennessee, 1862-1864, in the same publication, also holds 
this view. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 61 

ventured further from his base. 32 Johnson’s reply made little 
effort to conceal the contempt he felt for Buell and his defensive 
policy. Bragg’s force could not exceed twenty-five thousand men, 
he declared. Fifty thousand could not subsist in the country 
through which the Confederates were moving. His own opinion 
was that Bragg had not half of twenty-five thousand. He would 
not attack Nashville unless Buell retreated. 33 

The next day, overwrought by disappointment, the governor 
sent a long, bitter, almost despairing letter to Lincoln. 34 “On 
two occasions,” he said, “I have stated to the president that 
General Buell would never enter and redeem the eastern portion 
of this state. I do not believe he ever intended to, notwithstand¬ 
ing his fair promises to the president and others that he would. 
. . . In my opinion,” he “could meet Bragg and whip him with 
the greatest ease,—entering lower Tennessee, and turn the rear 
of the force said to be now before General Morgan at Cumber¬ 
land Gap, leaving Morgan to march into East Tennessee and take 
possession of the railroad, at once segregating and destroying 
the unity of their territory, and that too, in the midst of a 
population that is loyal and will stand by the government. . . . 
Instead of meeting and whipping Bragg where he is, it is his 
intention to occupy a defensive position, and' (he) is now, 
according to the best evidence I can obtain, concentrating all his 
forces upon Nashville, giving up all the country which we have 
had possession of south and east of this place, leaving the Union 
sentiment and Union men who took a stand for the government 
to be crushed out and utterly ruined by the rebels, who will all 
be in arms upon the retreat of our army. It seems to me that 
General Buell fears his own personal safety, and has concluded 
to gather the whole army at This point as a kind of body-guard 
to protect and defend him, without reference to the Union men 
who have been induced to speak out, believing that the govern¬ 
ment will defend them. General Buell is very popular with the 
rebels, and the impression is that he is more partial to them 
than to Union men, and that he favors the establishment of a 

30 O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p, 451; J. P., vol. xxv, 5579 - 

“O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 461; J. P., vol. xxv, 5581. 

**New York Tribune, November 18, 1862. 


62 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Southern confederacy.” Without going as far as that, the gov¬ 
ernor’s opinion is “that if he had designed to do so, he could not 
have laid down or pursued a policy that would have been more 
successful in the accomplishment of both these objects. . . . 
East Tennessee seems doomed. There is scarcely a hope left of 
her redemption; if ever, no one now can tell. May God save my 
country from some of the generals that have been conducting this 
war.” 

As Buell moved northward in pursuit of Bragg, he furnished 
the governor a fresh cause for distraction. He continued to 
overestimate the force of the enemy and, believing himself out¬ 
numbered and desiring to get every available soldier into the field, 
he considered the expediency of abandoning Nashville. No 
sooner had his army left the vicinity of that city than Forrest 
and Morgan closed in upon it. Between the middle of September 
and the middle of November, it was cut off from the outside' 
world. A large garrison, which Buell was anxious to have at 
the front, was required for its defense. The Confederates con¬ 
stantly intercepted foraging parties and immense quantities of 
supplies fell into their hands. The defense of the line of the 
railroad on which the city depended required more men than 
Buell could spare, intent as he was upon devoting every resource 
to the defeat and capture of Bragg’s army. To Johnson, on the 
other hand, the retention of the capital seemed of the utmost 
importance for the mission on which he had been sent. Politi¬ 
cally, its loss would be a catastrophe. The ridicule which, since 
February, the Unionists had heaped on the homeless, itinerant 
government of Harris, would return to mock them. All the 
governor’s prestige would fly northward with him, all the ground 
so painfully won would be lost. Believing, too, as he did, that 
Buell was already far stronger than Bragg, so tremendous a 
sacrifice for no sound reason whatever seemed to him criminally 
absurd. Buell appeared in his eyes an imbecile or worse. Rather 
than see the Confederates exulting in the possession of Nashville, 
he declared, it should be destroyed. Buell retorted that it should 
be left as he found it. Despite Johnson’s demand that Thomas 
be left at the capital, Buell ordered him to join the army, but a 
force under General John M. Palmer was sent to take his place. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 63 

In fact, the city was well garrisoned and, though closely belea¬ 
guered for two months, seems never to have been in serious danger 
of capture. 35 

Buell’s real designs regarding Nashville have been a perman¬ 
ent source of controversy between his friends and opponents, and, 
with all his operations in the campaign of 1862, were made the 
subject of a court of inquiry into his conduct which sat from 
November of that year until the following April. Johnson de¬ 
posed for this investigation that the rumor that Nashville would 
be surrendered was current among Unionists and Confederates, 
and many prominent secessionists, former residents of the city, re¬ 
turned with Bragg’s army in the confident expectation of regain¬ 
ing their homes. He had obtained an interview with Buell and 
earnestly urged the political considerations involved, begging that 
the city be held at all hazards, or, if absolutely necessary, de¬ 
stroyed, but never surrendered. The general had replied im¬ 
patiently that he should conduct his campaign in accordance with 
his own judgment, regardless of criticism. Upon military prin¬ 
ciples, he was convinced, Nashville should have been abandoned 
three months before. But Johnson’s representations finally 
opened his eyes to the broader aspects of the situation and, in 
a later interview, he informed him that he had concluded to 
defend the capital “not so much from military as from political 
considerations which had been pressed with so much earnestness 
upon him.” 36 

Buell, in his own statement before the commission, tells a 
different story and openly denounces Johnson’s testimony as 
false. He declares that he himself was fully alive to the political 
advantages of holding the capital and that he made his own 
decision. No interviews on the subject were held with the gov¬ 
ernor. “I had not,” he remarks pithily, “that confidence in his 
judgment or that distrust of my own which would have induced 
me to seek his counsel.” 37 

The commission, in its finding, accepted Johnson’s account 
rather than Buell’s. “He takes and uses up Governor John¬ 
son’s opinion,” it declared, “when he says that the place should 

30 O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 490; part i, p. 7H- 

38 Ibid., part i, p. 697. 

* Ibid., p. 59- 


6 4 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


be preserved on account of its political importance. . . . He 
was hesitating . . . when Governor Johnson . . . pressed this 
political view on him.” Even so, his action was half-hearted and 
inefficient; in falling back, he still failed to close the road by 
which Nashville could be attacked. The credit for the saving 
of the capital is accorded to Johnson. 38 

Whatever doubts as to his proper course may have clouded 
the judgment of the general, the governor was disturbed by 
none. He was possessed by an unshakable resolve to hold Nash¬ 
ville to the last gasp. He became the soul of the defense. During 
the last two weeks of September, Buell was far away in Ken¬ 
tucky and the enemy was at the gates. The commander of the 
post, General Negley, did not act with sufficient energy to suit 
Johnson and the latter lost no time in demanding his removal. 39 
An order putting him personally in command would, one surmises, 
have been grateful to him. “I am no military man,” he is 
reported to have said, “but any one who talks of surrendering 
I will shoot.” 40 

To this time belongs Lincoln’s story, which merits reproduc¬ 
tion as affording one of the very few intimate personal views 
of Johnson in these early days. Lincoln had it from Colonel 
Moody, the fighting Methodist parson, a character in the army, 
who was in Nashville the day it was rumored that Buell would 
evacuate the city. In Moody’s words, as Lincoln reports them: 

“ T went in search of Johnson at the close of the evening and 
found him at his office closeted with two gentlemen, who were 
walking the floor with him, one on each side. As I entered 
they retired, leaving me alone with Johnson, who came up 
to me manifesting intense feeling and said: ‘Moody, we are sold 
out! Buell is a traitor! He is going to evacuate the city, 
and in forty-eight hours we shall be in the hands of the rebels.’ 
Then he commenced pacing the floor again, twisting his hands 
and chafing like a caged tiger, utterly insensible to his friend’s 
entreaties to become calm. Suddenly he turned and said: 
‘Moody, can you pray?’ ‘That is my business, sir, as a minister 

" Ibid., pp. 17-18. 

»Ibid., p. 583. 

40 Peterson & Brothers, Life, Speeches, and Services of Andrew Johnson. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 65 

cf the Gospel/ returned the colonel. ‘Well, Moody, I wish 
you would pray/ said Johnson; and instantly both went down 
upon their knees at opposite sides of the room. As the prayer 
became fervent, Johnson began to respond in true Methodist 
style. Presently he crawled over on his hands and knees to 
Moody's side, and put his arm over him, manifesting the deepest 
emotion. Closing the prayer with a hearty ‘Amen!’ from each, 
they arose. Johnson took a long breath, and said with em¬ 
phasis: ‘Moody, I feel better!’ Shortly afterward he asked: 
‘Will you stand by meT ‘Certainly, I will,” was the answer. 
‘Well, Moody, I can depend upon you; you are one in a hundred 
thousand!’ He then commenced pacing the floor again. Sud¬ 
denly he wheeled, the current of his thought having changed, 
and said: ‘Oh! Moody, I don’t want you to think I have become 
a religious man because I asked you to pray. I am sorry 
to say it, but I am not, and have never pretended to be, religious. 
No one knows this better than you; but, Moody,—there is 
one thing about it—I do believe in Almighty God! And I be¬ 
lieve in the Bible, and I say I’ll be damned if Nashville shall be 
surrendered!’ And Nashville was not surrendered.” 41 

Buell’s pursuit of Bragg from Louisville, the battle of Perry- 
ville, and the retirement of the Confederate army into East 
Tennessee during the month of October are important for this 
sketch only from the fact that they relieved the pressure on 
Nashville. Dissatisfaction with Buell had constantly increased 
at Washington. It was felt that he had been outgeneralled in 
August and that he should have crushed or seriously crippled 
Bragg in Kentucky in October. 42 As early as the 29th of Sep- 

" Savage, The Life and Public Services of Andrew Johnson, p. 272. 

“The campaign of Buell against Bragg is one of the persistent polemi¬ 
cal heritages of the war. Buell himself, a pathetic figure, devoted bitter 
years to a disheartening attempt to secure the vindication which has now 
been accorded him in the highly eulogistic tributes of the principal authori¬ 
ties on military history. General Grant said: “I think Buell had genius 
enough for the highest commands.” J. R. Young, Around the World with 
General Grant, vol. ii, p. 289, quoted by Rhodes, History of the United 
States, vol. iv, p. 184, note. See also the estimates of Ropes, Story of 
the Civil War; Fry, The Army under Buell; and J. D. Cox in The Nation, 
October 2, 1884. Citations in Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. 


66 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


tember, an order relieving him from command in favor of 
Thomas had been delivered to him , 43 but withdrawn five days 
later, owing to his successful arrival in Louisville and the 
generous representations of Thomas that Buell’s obstacles had 
been great and that his preparations to move against the enemy 
were then completed, while Thomas himself had not the in- 

iv pp. 173-184. Colonel 'Henry Stone, in Papers of the Military Histori¬ 
cal Society of Massachusetts, vol. vii (1908), pp. 257 et seq., completely 
exonerates Buell, ascribes the misfortunes of the Union army to the 
weakness and dilatoriness of Halleck, and characterizes the proceedings 
of the Buell commission as without “regard for law or justice” and 
“founded on misconception and ignorance.” He quotes the Confederate 
general Basil Duke as saying: “It can be demonstrated, I think, that 
upon no effort which the Confederacy made . . . did more depend than 
on the success or failure of Bragg’s well-considered but futile attempt to 
transfer the combat to fields where victories might be of some value and 
give hope of final triumph. . . . The promise of substantial and perma¬ 
nent benefit to the Southern cause which a successful consummation of 
this campaign in Kentucky offered was larger and more certain, I am 
persuaded, than at Manassas or Gettysburg.” -Colonel Stone concludes: 
“Buell’s pursuit of his enemy into and out of Kentucky in September 
and October, 1862, evinced far greater courage, energy, skill, and all the 
higher military virtues than were shown by the commander of the Potomac 
army in June and July, 1863.” “In reviewing the operations of Buell from 
the beginning of ihis retreat to the battle of Perryville there appears to be 
nothing to be criticized. His concentration was skilfully and speedily 
effected and his northward march so ordered as to bring his army in 
good condition into Louisville. It was there reorganized with admirable 
celerity, the plan of campaign was well contrived, and but for the curious 
accident at Perryville might have led to a very successful issue. . . . The 
failure properly to explore the country in his front is the only serious 
omission which can be charged to General Buell’s account. It was the 
common blunder of our Federal commanders during the first two years 
of our Civil War. At no time in this conflict was our cavalry service 
adequate to the needs. . . . When Buell marched from Louisville to try 
the issue of battle with Bragg every reasonable critic would have been 
willing to compromise for the results which were won by the Perryville 
engagement. . . . We cannot resist the conclusion that, so far as Buell’s 
work is concerned, the campaign was one of the best conducted of our 
Civil War.” N. S. Shaler, The Kentucky Campaign of 1862, Papers of 
the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. vii, pp. 205 et seq. 
Captain Ephraim A. Otis’ article in the same publication, p. 277, is un¬ 
favorable to Buell, but unconvincing. 

“O. iR. series i, vol. xvi, part ii. pp. 538, 554. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 67 

formation necessary for such a crisis. 44 The fine honor of 
Thomas’ character held him always scrupulously loyal to his 
chief. To Johnson, who was urging him for Buell’s place, he 
had written in August: “I believe that the relief of East 
Tennessee has been entrusted to an able commander, and that 
he will eventually give it sure and permanent relief.” 45 Senator 
Crittenden and others protested against Buell’s removal, asserting 
that the army confided in and loved him. 46 But his enemies, 
chief among whom was Johnson, were implacable. 47 The suc¬ 
cessful escape of Bragg sealed his doom. Johnson was impor¬ 
tuning the war department to embrace the opportunity to re¬ 
deem East Tennessee and Halleck himself sent Buell an urgent 
order to occupy that district during the fall. Buell hesitated 
to comply. He declared that Bragg had sixty thousand men to 
oppose him and that Nashville should first be cleared of the 
enemy and made a safe base of supplies. 48 In fact, his position 
was intolerable. Realizing that he had lost the confidence of 
the president and Stanton, his own confidence was also gone, 
and he must have welcomed the order (October 24) relieving 
him and placing General Rosecrans in command. As the latter, 
with reinforcements, advanced to Nashville, the Confederates 
abandoned hope of capturing the city and withdrew. By No¬ 
vember the peril had passed. 

Although Johnson’s authority extended nominally over the 
whole of Tennessee, the field of its practical exercise was re¬ 
stricted, during the year 1862, to the immediate vicinity of 
Nashville. The rest of the state was the scene of the marching and 

"Ibid., p. 555 - 

*J. P., vol. xxiv, 5448. 

* 0 . R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 55& 

47 It seems certain that Buell was sacrificed to the impatience for im¬ 
mediate, decisive victories which was chronic in the North early in the 
war. His difficulties were not appreciated at Washington and he seems 
to have lacked the art of making friends and to have drawn too much 
into himself, even to the point of appearing uncandid. Besides Johnson, 
Governors Morton of Indiana, Yates of Illinois, and Tod of Ohio urged 
his removal. Rhodes, Histovy of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 182, 183* 

" O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, pp. 642, 636. 


68 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


countermarching of armies, great battles, raids, and depredations 
by the guerillas. Even within the city itself, his freedom of action 
was almost destroyed by the presence of that immediate military 
necessity which subjected everything to the arbitrary will of 
the commanding general. Under such circumstances, there 
seemed to be no room for the governor. Obviously he could 
make no progress in his mission of peaceful reconstruction. 
His only importance lay in the fact that he was a brigadier- 
general, whose place in the system was doubtful. A man of 
less self-assertiveness and force of character would have sunk 
into temporary obscurity, while the army cleared the stage for 
him to perform his part. But to Johnson no such course was 
possible. Unable to exercise his civil functions and equally 
unable to remain passive, he proceeded to make himself felt, 
often painfully, in a military capacity. The record of his office 
during this period is one of alternate cooperation and conflict 
with Buell and his subordinates. 

Besides an indomitable will, relentless persistence, and un- 
scrupulousness, Johnson possessed, in the confidence of the 
president, the greatest possible asset for gaining his ends. 
Lincoln was promptly drawn by natural sympathy to a per¬ 
sonality in many respects resembling his own. He appreciated 
and admired Johnson’s early struggles, his self-reliance, his 
physical and moral courage, and his impressions were confirmed 
by his independent loyalty in 1861, his readiness to assume the 
lead where many hesitated to follow, his quick grasp of the 
essential issues of the war, and his prophetic insight into con¬ 
ditions in the border states. The assurance and efficiency with 
which he administered the difficult office of military governor de¬ 
lighted the president. While he had had many troublesome ques¬ 
tions to settle from other governors and officers, he told Schuyler 
Colfax in the summer of 1862, “Andy Johnson had never em¬ 
barrassed him in the slightest degree.” 49 Stanton shared the 
president’s view. Their conviction of his unique value to the 
Union cause in Tennessee induced them to lend a ready ear to 
his complaints and to give him his way whenever possible. 
The military officers who, believing in their superior importance, 

49 J. P., vol. xxi, 4944. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 69 

chose to ignore or antagonize him, discovered in the end the 
unwisdom of such a course. 

The quarrel between Johnson and Buell over the general 
military policy in Tennessee and its outcome have been treated 
already. The governor’s relations with most of the lesser officers 
with whom he came in contact were no less strained. The fact 
is, he was self-willed, uncompromising and dictatorial, and, once 
his mind was made up, intolerant of opposition or even of 
honest opinion in conflict with his own. Impatient and rough 
in speech, abrupt and belligerent in manner, his attitude repelled 
any calm discussion and adjustment of difficulties with officers 
accustomed to military etiquette and jealous of the dignity of 
their positions. Controversies with Generals Nelson and Negley, 
commanders of the post at Nashville, resulted in demands by 
Johnson for the removal of these officers and, whether or not 
in consequence of the demand, the desired changes were made. 
Colonel Matthews, the provost-marshal, also felt the force of 
the governor’s hostility and, even after his departure, Johnson’s 
animosity pursued him and prevented his promotion in the 
army. 60 

The governor’s pet antipathy, perhaps, was Captain Greene, 
the assistant adjutant-general. He first alienated Johnson by 
dispatching to the front troops that the latter considered necessary 
for service in Nashville. A more direct ground of contention 
was an order issued by Buell that all officers assigned to the 
command of troops live in camp with their soldiers, and not 
in houses in Nashville. In Greene’s absence, Johnson had taken 
possession of certain houses by virtue of his authority as military 
governor and allotted them as residences to officers of his guard 
and their families. Greene, who seems to have acted always 
in good faith as a responsible subordinate, reported the facts 
to Buell’s chief-of-staff for instructions and received reply that 
the order admitted of no exceptions. Thereupon he directed the 
provost-marshal, Colonel Campbell, to eject one of the families 
instated by Johnson. Campbell, prompted in advance, refused, 
and Greene placed him under arrest. The governor was now 
thoroughly aroused. He brought his influence to bear and, 


w Ibid., 4758, 4759 - 


70 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


within two days, had secured a disavowal of the order from 
Buell, the restoration of the house, the release of Campbell, 
the transfer of Greene from Nashville, and authority himself 
to appoint a provost-marshal in sympathy with him and under 
his orders. “The president hopes this will be satisfactory to 
you,” telegraphed Stanton, “and that you will use efforts to 
prevent any disputes or collision of authority between your 
subordinates and those of General Buell.” 51 This incident, un¬ 
important in itself, illustrates vividly the disposition of the 
Federal executive to hold up the governor’s hands. 

Johnson took care that the military commanders should not be 
in the dark as to the scope of his powers. To every general 
newly arrived in the department he sent a copy of his com¬ 
mission and instructions, sometimes with his own explanatory 
comment. General Negley, who gave signs of a disposition 
to repeat the errors of Buell and Greene, received a pointed note 
to the effect that, if Buell had formerly appointed provost- 
marshals, he had done so at the suggestion and by the consent 
of the governor, to whom the actual authority belonged. 52 

Not military men alone felt Johnson’s imperious disfavor. He 
fell into a violent altercation with John Lellyett, the postmaster 
of Nashville, a cultured gentleman of high character, to whose 
appointment, as a sop to the conservative loyal element, he 
had reluctantly consented. Lellyett clung to a liberal and pacific 
policy toward the secessionists, demanding that return to the 
Union “as it was” be the only condition imposed upon them. 
He positively refused to follow Johnson’s lead and probably 
showed some disdain in his treatment of him. He himself 
says that the opposition of his friends to Johnson’s candidate 
for postmaster directed the governor’s hostility to him. Both 
communicated their grievances to Washington, Lellyett request¬ 
ing that his successor be appointed “in case it is esteemed, as it 
seems to be assumed by Governor Johnson, that I hold my office 
merely at his pleasure.” Such apparently was the fact, for the 
postmaster was soon numbered among the victims of Johnson’s 
animosity. 53 

m O. R., series i. vol. x, part ii, pp. 629, 631; vol. xvi, part i, pp. 
119, 122, 135, 17s; J- vol. xxi, 4990, 5024, 5026. 

98 J. P., vol. xxvi, 5776. 

“ Ibid., vol. xix, 4438, 4451, 4453. 


CHAPTER V 


Repression Under Rosecrans 

In his initial proclamation, Johnson had announced a mild and 
liberal policy of pacification, for the purpose of winning back 
the state to its allegiance with the least possible friction and 
avoiding all unnecessary hardship to the citizens. Buell devoted 
himself to the same end. In fact, his known border-state con¬ 
nections and sympathies were regarded as peculiarly fitting him 
for the work in hand. The belief was general at Washington 
that Tennessee was only half-hearted in the rebellion and could 
be converted by kindness. Citizens not actively in opposition to 
the government received the protection of the army and every 
effort was made to keep all property in statu quo in the hope that 
gratitude would draw the owners towards the Union. 1 

Before long, however, it became difficult to avoid the conclu¬ 
sion that the hearts of the Southern sympathizers were hardened 
and that no appreciable number would declare loyal sentiments 
while reasonable prospects of Confederate success remained. 
Fear stopped the mouths of many. The secessionists fully under¬ 
stood the importance of Tennessee to the Confederacy; they 
instituted a systematic persecution of Union men, and any avowal 
of loyalty to the Federal government invited prompt retribution, 
as agents of which the guerillas were unsurpassed. Everywhere, 
except in portions of East Tennessee, a Unionist was boycotted 
by his neighbors and his life was in danger. “I passed a squad 
of my used-to-be friends,” wrote a Davidson county man to John¬ 
son, “and one of them asked me how I liked the Federals. I 
told him I liked them pretty well. He said, ‘You don’t, do you ?’ 
and I said, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘Very well, old fellow, we will 
jerk you off the ground when they go away from here.’ And 
there are men going to and returning from the rebel army 
all the time,—at least, they say they have been there and seen 
the boys—and they tell the people to keep in good spirits, 


1 Nashville Union, August 3 , 1862* 


72 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


that the rebel army will be back here by the first of June next.” 2 
The policy of conciliation was generally regarded as not only 
futile, but positively disastrous. The rebels, testified Parson 
Brownlow before the Buell commission, “attribute our forbear¬ 
ance toward them to cowardice and think that we are afraid of 
them. It disheartens and discourages the Unionists. I heard 
them complain at Nashville even of Governor Johnson’s for¬ 
bearing and conciliatory policy toward the rebels.” The latter, 
he affirmed, gained by pursuing the opposite course. 3 

Under such circumstances, Johnson, in whose nature charity 
was not an essential element, did not long hesitate to adapt 
himself to actualities. His first step in the direction of greater 
stringency was a proclamation, 4 on the 9th of May, aimed to 
prevent the maltreating and plundering of Union citizens. 
Whenever a Union man was misused, five or more of the most 
prominent “rebels” of the immediate neighborhood should be 
“arrested, imprisoned, and otherwise dealt with as the nature 
of the case may require,” and whenever the property of loyalists 
was taken or destroyed, remuneration should be made t<q them 
out of the property of those in the vicinity who had given 
“aid, comfort, information or encouragement” to the offenders. 
“This order,” concludes the proclamation, “will be executed 
in letter and spirit. All citizens are hereby warned, under 
heavy penalties, from entertaining, receiving, or encouraging 
such persons so banded together, or in any wise connected 
therewith.” That this was no idle threat was shown the follow¬ 
ing month, when the mayor and aldermen of Pulaski, despite 

2 J. P., vol. xviii, 4156. 

8| 0 . R., series i, vol. xvi, part i, p. 674. Testimony to the contrary is, 
however, not lacking. Lieutenant Holloway, a cavalry officer, captured by 
the Confederates and later paroled declared: “I talked with many of 
Breckenridge’s staff. ... I think a lenient course would soon win Ten¬ 
nessee back. General Buell’s course was productive of much good. He 
has made a number of good Union men all through the South. General 
Breckenridge told me that General Buell hurt the South more than the 
armies of the United States by his lenient policy. The people in Ten¬ 
nessee had written to their sons to desert and come home; that General 
Buell would not incarcerate them in prison, as they supposed.” 0 . R., 
series i, vol. xx, part ii, p. 25. 

4 Nashville Union, July 5; Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. v, doc. 123. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


73 


their vigorous protests, were forced to provide compensation 
to Union men for their property seized or damaged by Morgan’s 
raiders, who, according to the testimony before a board of 
inquiry, entered the town with the welcome of many of its 
citizens and were permitted to plunder without protest by the 
municipal officers.” 5 “It is well known,” commented the governor 
tartly, in affirming the judgment of the board, “that such bands 
only go and remain in places where they have sympathizers. 
. . . Such disloyal citizens have brought about and are now, 
by acts of disloyalty, contributing to the organization and support 
of these bands.” 6 

Secession sympathizers who, by open or covert threats, falling 
short of actual violence, intimidated Union men and prevented 
the free expression of loyalty, next occupied the governor’s at¬ 
tention. Early in June, he ordered that all persons guilty of 
uttering disloyal sentiments, who refused to take the oath and 
give bonds for their future good behavior, be sent south and 
treated as spies if they ventured back during the war. 7 The 
application of this order in specific instances has already 
been described. To Colonel Mundy, who executed it at Pulaski, 
he wrote that a few of the most important cases should be 
selected first, and subsequent action taken according to the 
effect produced on the public mind. 8 At the same time, he asked 
and obtained the consent of Lincoln to arrest seventy “vile 
secessionists” and offer them in exchange for an equal number 
of prominent loyal East Tennesseeans imprisoned at Mobile. 
If exchange was refused, he proposed to send his prisoners 
south at their own expense and forbid their return. 9 

The operations of the Union army, too, were seriously handi¬ 
capped by the disloyalty of the Tennesseeans. Buell declared 
that he could learn nothing from the people, while every detail 
of his movements was immediately communicated to the enemy. 
Almost no supplies could be obtained and the army was com- 

5 J. P., vol. xix, 4424, 4460; vol. xx, 4523. 

*Ibid., vol. xx, 4525. 

T Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, p. 766. 

8 J. P., vol. xx, 4646; vol. xxi, 4693. 

9 Ibid., vol. xx, 4609, 4638; Lincoln's Complete Works, vol. vii, p. 215. 


74 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


pelled to move slowly and protect its long line of communica¬ 
tions, but “wherever Forrest stopped he found prepared food 
and forage in ample quantities.” 10 In August, General William 
Sooy Smith, guarding the railroad between Nashville and 
Stevenson, complained to Johnson that the enemy were able 
to capture his detachments through information furnished them 
by citizens and that all Union families were being driven into 
camps of refuge. Either the government should change its 
mild policy or he should be released from a service so in¬ 
tolerable. “Let all disloyal persons,” he urged, “be driven at 
once across the lines to the rebels where they belong” and “let 
the loyal patriotic citizens of the land be organized, armed and 
equipped for their own home defense and the protection of 
our lines of communication.” 11 

Johnson was by this time thoroughly committed to the doc¬ 
trine that the foes of the government “must be made to feel 
the burden of their own deeds and to bear everything which 
the necessities of the situation require should be imposed on 
them.” 12 On the 26th of June, he urged upon Stanton that the 
army be subsisted on the enemy. This, he maintained, would 
bring rebels to their senses. They “must be made to feel the 
weight and ravages of the war they have brought upon the 
country. Treason must be made odious and traitors impover¬ 
ished. We are raising forces here—infantry and cavalry— 
and in obtaining horses and supplies the secretary of war need 
not be surprised if we make rebels meet the demand. 13 He in¬ 
structed General Negley, at Columbia, fully to compensate 
plundered Union men out of the property of disloyalists and 
to make all arrests required by the public interests, “let them 
be many or few.” 14 Only the fear of the army and relentless 
repression by Johnson kept the secessionists subdued, wrote the 
correspondent of the New York Tribune. “Should he loosen 
his hold in the least, they would at once resume their treason- 

10 O. R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. 85. 

11 J. P., vol. xxiii, 5249. 

“O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 242; J. P., vol. xxv, 5475. 

13 O. R., series i, vol. xvi, part d, p. 216. 

14 J. P-, vol. xxiv, 5337. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


75 


able practices, and so he keeps the screws tight down upon 
their thumbs.” 15 

The appointment of Rosecrans to the command of the depart¬ 
ment of the Cumberland in November gave the governor an 
ally heartily disposed to lend the full support of the army to 
the program of repression. Establishing his headquarters at 
Nashville, he promulgated orders indicative of the course he 
proposed to follow. All peaceable inhabitants were promised 
immunity from interference, other than necessary surveillance, 
but outspoken rebels need expect no other protection than that 
dictated by the laws of war and humanity. Citizens guilty of 
acts of hostility or belonging to partisan corps not under proper 
military control were to be treated as pirates and robbers. Sol¬ 
diers were forbidden to enter private grounds or houses with¬ 
out written permission or order from a commissioned officer, 
who was held- responsible for their acts. Provost-marshals 
were to avoid unjust and unnecessary arrests of private persons. 
Trade in necessaries in towns and cities within the lines of 
the army was restricted to resident traders. 16 

The policy of the government, henceforth to be enforced by 
both the civil and the military arms was, as the Nashville Union 
concisely stated it, “to draw a line between its friends and its 
enemies, and give protection where it finds allegiance.” 17 To 
establish this distinction, Rosecrans and Johnson introduced a 
certificate or guarantee of protection, which was issued to per¬ 
sons of well-known loyalty, and to such other persons as gave 
bond to “keep the peace, and afford neither aid nor comfort 
to the enemies of the government of the United States,” to be 
“true and steadfast” citizens of the United States, and not to 
“go beyond the lines of the Federal armies, nor into any section 
of the country in possession of the enemy, without permission 
of the authorities of the United States.” This was called the 
non-combatant parole. The certificate pledged to its holder 
the protection of the United States, commanded all persons, 
military and civil, to respect him in the enjoyment of his property, 

18 New York Tribune , September i, 1862. 

“Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, p. 598. 

37 Nashville Union, November 30. 


76 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


and forbade foraging upon his premises except for the actual 
necessities of the army, and then only with the utmost care 
and in return for a receipt entitling the owner to compensation 
from the government. At Rosecrans’ request and to relieve the 
regular army officers of the task of administering the oath of 
allegiance and taking the bonds with the non-combatant parole, 
Johnson appointed commissioners in the various counties, so 
far as practicable, and also one to accompany Rosecrans’ army 
for the same purpose. 18 

The ousting of Buell in favor of Rosecrans had highly grati¬ 
fied Johnson. “I feel in strong hopes,” he wrote to Lincoln, 
“that things will go well in a few days, as we have a man at 
the head of this army who will fight.” 19 It soon appeared, how¬ 
ever, that the harmony would be short-lived. The fact was that 
the dual system of government devised by Lincoln and Stanton 
could not run smoothly under the unfavorable conditions with 
which it had to contend. Had the Union army succeeded in 
promptly driving the Confederate forces out of the state and 
in handing over to the governor a territory cleared of enemies 
for political reconstruction, while the army operated on the 
borders of the state or beyond them, it is conceivable, even 
probable, that the two authorities, with plenty of room for 
their movements, might have performed their respective parts 
without disturbing each other. Instead of this, the failure of 
Buell threw the army back upon the capital, and civil and 
military officers were crowded together into the northern part 
of the state, while Nashville, the seat and source of the civil 
power, became also, as a strategic centre, the military head¬ 
quarters; and Rosecrans, in whose aggressive qualities John¬ 
son had gloried, proved quite as disposed to overrule a governor 
who interfered with his plans as to attack an enemy in the field. 

A glance at the jumble of offices and authorities in Nashville 
during the winter of 1862-63 clearly shows the hopelessness 
of the situation. General Rosecrans had established there his 
office as commander of the department, and the other depart¬ 
ment functionaries—the chief quartermaster, chief commissary, 

18 Ibid., November 29; J. P., vol. xxvii, 6070. 

19 O. R., series i, vol. xx, part ii, p. 70. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


77 


provost-marshal general, and medical director—had each his 
separate establishment. There also were the headquarters of 
the post commander, General Mitchell, and the offices of his 
five assistant quartermasters. When Rosecrans was not in the 
city, there was an office for the district, presided over by an 
assistant adjutant-general, and the provost-marshal general gave 
place to a provost-marshal responsible both to the district com¬ 
mander and to Governor Johnson. Side by side with the military 
existed the civil administration of the state (the governor and 
his council), the officers of Davidson county, and the mayor, 
aldermen, common council, and minor officers of the city of Nash¬ 
ville. The county, circuit, criminal, and chancery courts held ses¬ 
sions in the city, also the municipal court of the recorder. Military 
commissions and tribunals administered martial law. There 
were the county sheriff, the city marshals, and the provost- 
marshal; the county constables, the municipal police, and the 
provost-marshal's guard. To these was soon added the secret 
detective police of the army. The contemplation of such a 
list gives an impression of confusion worse confounded. That 
utter chaos did not, in fact, result is a tribute to the good sense 
and forbearance of both Rosecrans and Johnson. 

In such a situation, the general of the army, as the visible 
source of power, was certain to predominate. Even as resolute 
a civil officer as Johnson suffered severely in prestige. Every 
new military commander, said the Nashville Press , trespassed 
upon his province and each had a different system from his 
predecessor. The Press paid a tribute to the governor's modera¬ 
tion and unselfish labors for harmony. Although empowered 
to countermand any military order touching civil affairs, he 
refrained from exerting his authority in opposition to the 
military, which was thus encouraged in its usurpations. So the 
people were led to think that the general was the real force 
to be reckoned with. 20 The prevailing view is well expressed 
by a contemporary writer: “Honorable Andrew Johnson, the 
military governor of Tennessee, appeared, to the eyes of super¬ 
ficial observers, to be busy enough, but it was difficult to define 
his functions. His authority could not extend beyond the military 


20 Nashville Press, June 8. 


78 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


lines, which were then rather contracted. The civil and military 
administration of Tennessee . . . were so intimately blended 
that it was quite impossible to separate them, so that the re¬ 
sponsibility of civil government really devolved on General 
Rosecrans. Rebels who had business with the government de¬ 
clined generally to hold intercourse witih the governor, and 
loyal men sought the attention of the military chief. Excepting 
the issuance of commissions to officers of Tennessee volunteers, 
and to a magistrate now and then; the collection and distribu¬ 
tion of taxes levied upon wealthy rebels for charitable purposes; 
and correspondence with the state department at Washington, 
there was really nothing else for the governor to do. Honorable 
Hugh Smith was mayor of Nashville, but his office was almost 
a sinecure, the municipal government being reduced to petty 
police business and the hebdomadal meetings of aldermen.” 21 

The principal bone of contention between Johnson and 
Rosecrans was the new police system introduced by the latter 
in December for the purpose of maintaining order, ferreting 
out hidden treason, and detecting violations of the trade regu¬ 
lations in his department. The initial step was the detailing 
of a provost guard to act in conjunction with the local police, 
an arrangement which at first worked very successfully. A 
provost court was also erected for the trial of cases under 
military law, and this was supplemented by the army detective 
police under Colonel Truesdail, a capable, but apparently 
arbitrary, tactless and unscrupulous officer, a confidant of Rose¬ 
crans. The wide and secret ramifications of this organization, 
its assumptions of authority, its interference with the daily 
life of the people soon aroused both animosity and apprehension 
in the community. The correspondent of the New York Times 
reported that Truesdail appropriated all the Confederate money 

21 Nashville Union, June 17. “He daily thundered incoherent invectives 
against the ‘Hell-hounds of the hell-born and hell-bound Confederacy’, 
when he was capable of articulate utterance, or could find so much as an 
audience of one to listen. This, and sending false and misleading tele¬ 
grams to Washington, was the extent to which he exercised the mixed 
functions of his anomalous position as brigadier-general and military 
governor.” Colonel Henry Stone, Papers of the Military Historical So¬ 
ciety of Massachusetts, vol. vii (1908), p. 275. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


79 


in the banks and exchange offices at Nashville, seized and con¬ 
fiscated property without show of justice or regard for Union 
interests, made arbitrary arrests on charges of treason, tried the 
accused in his own court and convicted them on insufficient 
evidence, and exercised for his own profit the exclusive privileges 
of granting passes through the lines, carrying the mails, and 
transporting soldiers, while Rosecrans wffiked at these out¬ 
rageous proceedings. 22 “It became a by-word that this person 
was commander-in-chief/’ The Nashville Union, whose state¬ 
ments are, however, always to be regarded with suspicion, 
charged that Truesdail had proposed to Rosecrans and Johnson 
that they establish a “military triumvirate,” proclaim martial 
law throughout the state, and enter upon a career of “indis¬ 
criminate confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and execution” as 
the shortest road to reconstruction. To this was added the 
accusation that he and his satellites were not beyond the reach 
of corrupt influences in granting favors and administering the 
trade regulations. 23 

By the middle of January, the encroachments of Truesdail’s 
police had become so pronounced and public protest so general 
that Johnson felt constrained to complain to Rosecrans. This 
he did reluctantly, as the general’s satisfaction with his new 
engine of repression was well known. “A detective police, prop¬ 
erly organized and conducted upon correct principles,” he 
conceded, “might do some good in connection with the interests 
and moverhents of the army, but I am compelled to say that 
the provost court and detective police here, by the extensive 
jurisdiction assumed, and the summary manner in which they 
undertake to dispose of the persons and property of citizens, 
have not only excited a feeling of indignation among the more 
conservative portion of the community, but have greatly im¬ 
paired the confidence of the loyal men, that class to whom we 
look for active support, in the correct intentions of the govern¬ 
ment, it being held responsible for the unjust acts of its reputed 
agents.” He pointed out that, within the district restored 
to Federal control, already existed all the machinery necessary 

28 Nashville Union, October 29. 

28 Ibid., October 31. 


8o 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


for enforcing both civil and military law. If, however, the 
general was convinced of the necessity of this additional agent, 
let it, for the sake of the public good, be confined solely to 
military affairs and the execution of military law. 24 In reply, 
Rosecrans acknowledged that some complaints had reached him, 
but he thought they came from smugglers and Jews whose 
contraband trade had been broken up. He assured the gov¬ 
ernor that justice should be done in every specific case reported 
to him. 25 

Meanwhile, Johnson had not failed to lay his grievances be¬ 
fore his friends in Washington, on whose decisive support he 
could, with certainty, rely, as Rosecrans might have learned by 
contemplating his predecessor’s history. Promptly came from 
Halleck a detailed, unequivocal letter, 26 designed to convince 
Rosecrans that the authority of the governor was a potent 
reality and pointedly prescribing the bounds which the military 
should not pass. The office held by Johnson was created, Halleck 
explains, to mitigate the evils of a purely military government, 
and to restore the civil machinery as promptly and thoroughly 
as possible, and the civil authorities thus restored are entitled 
to as much respect as those of Kentucky, Missouri, or any other 
state that happens to be a theatre of war. “In other words, 
the military forces of the United States will not interfere with 
the authority and jurisdiction of the loyal officers of the state 
government, except in case of urgent and pressing necessity.” 
After attempting to distinguish between civil and military juris¬ 
diction, Halleck observes that the provost-marshals must confine 
their activities to matters purely and indubitably military, 
leaving everything else to the local police. To insure harmony, 
it might be well to put Johnson, as a brigadier-general, in 
command of the troops in Nashville. 

Either Rosecrans failed to recognize the veiled warning, or 
his discretion, clouded by anger, led him into the wrong course. 
He acknowledged Halleck’s letter in a rather abrupt telegram, 27 

“J. P., vol. xxix, 6326. 

36 Ibid., 6353. 

28 O. iR., series iii, vol. iii, p. 77. 

Ibid., series i, vol. xxiii, part ii, p. 174. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 81 

denying any knowledge of a conflict of authority. Nashville, 
he said, was too important a post to entrust to Johnson, but if 
the latter would report to him, he would place him in command 
at Gallatin. Respect for Rosecrans’ intelligence forces one to 
the conclusion that he deliberately and wilfully misinterpreted 
his instructions. If so, he was not long in discovering that he 
had made a false step. Halleck’s stinging reply brought the 
aspiring officer to heel without ado and showed him plainly 
that his business was to cooperate with the governor, not to 
dominate him. Johnson, he was told, was no ordinary brigadier- 
general, but the governor of a state, with the full powers ap¬ 
pertaining to that office, and Rosecrans’ suggestion that he 
should report to him for a command “was in direct opposition 
to the wishes of the government” as communicated in Halleck’s 
letter, and “was received by the war department with marked 
dissatisfaction.” 28 

Rosecrans learned his lesson. “I assure you,” he hastened 
to answer Halleck, “I have done all I possibly could, con¬ 
sistently with military safety, to build up and sustain the civil 
authority wherever I have had command, especially in Ten¬ 
nessee. No one appreciates the sacrifice and the delicate and 
trying position of Governor Johnson more than I do. . . . But 
Nashville is an enclosed garrison, and my grand depot. It is 
full of traitors and spies, and to it go all the rascals and 
speculators that follow an army. I am, therefore, obliged to 
have it commanded by an able and experienced officer, and 
to exercise a rigid military policy; but am not aware of, nor do I 
believe there has been, any material departure from the letter 
and spirit of your instructions of the 20th, and my reply to it, 
though brief, was not to treat the suggestion about putting 
the governor in military command with disrespect, but to say, 
if done, that, in my opinion, would (not?) be best for thle 
country.” He reiterates his utter ignorance of any conflict 
of authority, and requests that all complaints be forwarded to 
him. “I will either show they are unfounded, remedy them, 
or prove that it cannot be done without injury to the country.” 29 

38 Ibid., p. 191. 

38 Ibid., p. 208. 


82 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


At the same time, he sent to Stanton a similar open letter for 
Johnson, which elicited from the latter the response: “There 
has been nothing, there will be nothing desired by me but har¬ 
mony and concert of action to put down the rebellion and restore 
to the people of Tennessee all their legal and constitutional 
rights; of this you know I have given assurance both in action 
and words/’ 30 

Good resolutions, however honest, were of slight avail against 
impossible conditions. Truesdail and his policy still remained a 
vexation. In the discharge of his duty to prevent infringements 
of the treasury regulations, he came into contact with the cotton 
traders and proved susceptible to their blandishments. Soon it 
was widely rumored that he and those who had his favor were 
enjoying a practical monopoly of the cotton trade, and suspicion 
attached even to Rosecrans, whose vigorous support of Trues¬ 
dail, it was hinted, might be explained by his personal interest 
in the cotton speculation. Finally it came to the general’s ears 
that Johnson himself had reported the scandal. He at once dis¬ 
patched him a hotly indignant letter, 31 condemning the rumor 
as utterly false and calling upon him “as a man of standing and 
honor and one whom I believe to be my friend” to furnish him 
with all the information he possessed and to vindicate him in the 
fullest manner. Only after an ungracious silence of nearly two 
months did Johnson reply that he had no information affecting 
Rosecrans’ character as a citizen or soldier. His response to the 
appeal for vindication, though rendered less grateful by the irri¬ 
tating delay, was sufficiently hearty. “You state in your tele¬ 
gram,” he wrote, “that you consider me your friend. You are 
right in this, and no one will go further than I in vindication of 
your character. I have never believed, and do not now believe, 
that you have fully understood the character and extent of the 
proceedings under Truesdail’s direction. ... I fear that some 
designing persons have been trying to make an impression in¬ 
tended to disturb that good feeling which was understood to 
exist between us while you were here. If so, it will all be 
dispersed.” 32 

80 Ibid., p. 220. 

” J. P., vol. xxx, 6731. 

33 O. R, series i, vol. xxiii, part ii, p. 380. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 83 

The gravity of the charges against Truesdail and the publicity 
given the matter constrained Stanton to order the appointment 
of a mixed commission of officers and civilians to investigate the 
entire police administration of Nashville since its occupation by the 
army and the effect on the public interests and individual rights 
of the operations of both military and civil police. Truesdail’s 
skirts were generally believed to be smirched, and it was after¬ 
wards alleged that Rosecrans’ support of him was one of the 
causes of that general’s removal in October. 33 Johnson himself 
denied any complicity in the matter, but condemned Truesdail 
unsparingly as “a base and unmitigated Jesuitical parasite,” 34 
and declared that he had rejected applications for the release of 
fifty convicts in the state prison who were better men than he. 35 

Rosecrans’ experience had taught him caution, but he could 
not conceal his displeasure when, on the 3d of May, Johnson 
obtained the transfer of the first Tennessee infantry regiment 
from the general service to the governor’s personal command, 
as a nucleus for the guard he was then forming. He would, he 
said, give the requisite orders, but he could ill spare the regi¬ 
ment, and, what was more important, a force located within 
the garrison of Nashville, but not subject to the orders of the 
garrison commander, would do little but breed discord. 36 His 
observations were only good common-sense, but the transfer 
was made, notwithstanding. 

The utter impossibility of developing any considerable Union 
sentiment in Tennessee under the conditions then existing was 
emphasized by the bitterness which the new repressive policy 
engendered. Buell had been too mild; Rosecrans was too severe. 
“No wonder the national cause has made such slight headway 
in Tennessee,” remarked the Louisville Journal. “Many of those 
who have it in charge appear especially to study how little they 
can make it look like the cause of restoration and how much like 
the cause of subjugation. The restoration of the Union under 

33 Quoted by Nashville Union, October 29. 

34 Unscrupulous enemies of Rosecrans made much of the fact that he 
was a Catholic. 

05 J. P., vol. xxxvi, 7877. 

M O. R., series i, vol. xxiii, part ii, p. 308. 


8 4 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


such auspices is uphill work.” 37 On this point, however, Rose- 
crans and Johnson were in full accord and acted with unhesi¬ 
tating efficiency. Their resolution was strengthened by detailed 
instructions 38 from Halleck in March, prescribing the correct 
treatment for the various classes of inhabitants in the state. 

The so-called neutrals, said Halleck, have no proper standing 
in a civil war. Non-combatants must therefore be considered as 
rebel sympathizers. As such, they must not be molested or 
deprived of their property, except through military necessity, so 
long as they attend quietly to their own affairs, but they are 
subject to forced loans and military requisitions and their houses 
may be taken for soldiers’ quarters or other temporary military 
uses. With these exceptions, they are to be protected. But 
should they at any time resort to arms or give aid or information 
to the enemy, they become “rebels or military traitors,” to be 
punished with death; if captured, they will not be regarded as 
prisoners of war and their property is subject to confiscation. 
Hitherto, such persons have been treated altogether too leniently. 
Another class comprises those who, though not in arms against 
the United States, are avowedly hostile to the occupying army. 
These are under all the disabilities of non-combatants and, in 
addition, are liable to be arrested and confined as prisoners 
of war or expelled from the country as enemies. Halleck’s 
opinion is that they should not be permitted to go at large 
within the Federal lines. There are also obvious disadvantages 
in sending them south to swell the force of the enemy and in 
imprisoning them and weakening the army by detailing guards 
for them. The course to be followed in each case is left to 
the discretion of the general, with the injunction fthat the 
laws of war must be more strictly enforced than heretofore 
against all open and secret foes of the government. The 
people of Tennessee were to be brought by sad experience to 
appreciate the importance of reestablishing the exclusive sway 
of the civil law, which alone is no respecter of persons. To 
this end the army was to provide the propulsive force and the 
governor the machinery. 

87 Nashville Union, February 28, 1863. 

Ibid., March 21. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 85 

A beginning had already been made, as we have seen. In 
February, the military arm had fallen upon the defiant Nash¬ 
ville Gas Light Company, which had refused to transfer shares 
sold to Northern purchasers on the ground that the rights of 
Northern persons to Southern property were forfeited under 
the Confederate sequestration act. Post-commander Mitchell 
immediately ordered that any attempt of individuals or cor¬ 
porations to avail themselves of or obey any law of the Con¬ 
federate Congress or any disloyal state legislature should work 
forfeiture of all their property under the Federal confiscation 
act,- and that individuals so acting for themselves or for cor¬ 
porations should be sent south of the lines of the United States 
army. 39 On the 20th, Johnson, in accordance with the con¬ 
fiscation act, had warned all persons not to pay profits or rents 
to secessionists or their agents, but to retain them until a 
United States officer should be appointed to receive them; 40 
and, at the governor’s request, General Mitchell ordered the 
seizure of the goods of delinquents in the contribution assessed 
for the support of destitute women and children. 41 On the 
16th of March, a commission composed of three citizens and 
two officers of the army was established by Rosecrans to pass 
on claims for damages sustained by the citizens of Nashville 
and vicinity from the occupation by the army; 42 and a month 
later (April 14), a board of claims was constituted which, 
in its hearings, was to accord preference to those who declared 
themselves true and faithful citizens of the United States. 43 
This last measure was a shrewdly practical inducement for 
avowed Unionism, and many whom benevolence had failed to 
win now consulted their material interests and openly renewed 
their allegiance. While every favor was extended to confessed 
penitents, the lot of the recalcitrants became constantly harder. 
As if to point the contrast, Rosecrans, on the very day the 
board of claims was established, directed the arrest of a large 

** Ibid., February 28. 

"Ibid., February 21. 

“ Ibid., February 27. 

42 Ibid., March 18. 

" Ibid., August 14. 


86 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


number of citizens of Nashville whose secessionist propensities 
were well known. 44 The last loophole for Nashville secessionists 
was closed on the 21st by General Mitchell’s uncompromising 
order that all white persons over eighteen years of age residing 
within the lines of his command, who had not already taken 
the oath of allegiance and the non-combatants’ parole and after¬ 
wards faithfully observed them, do so and give the required 
bond within ten days, or go south of the lines of the army. 45 
Disability, in whatever form, was no longer to be coddled. 
On the 3d of May, a number of persons who had acted or 
spoken in hostility to the government were directed to remove 
north of the Ohio river, where their influence would be in¬ 
nocuous, and to remain there until the close of the war, under 
penalty of arrest and trial as spies, if they returned to 
Tennessee. 46 On the 23d of June, the confiscation act went 
into full effect in Nashville and Davidson county through the 
appointment of a commissioner (Charles Davis) to take posses¬ 
sion of and collect the rents on the property of Confederates, 
rent or lease it at his discretion, subject to Johnson’s approval, 
and hold the receipts to the order of the United States gov¬ 
ernment, as represented by the governor. 47 No longer could 
it be said, as in Buell’s day, that rebels were protected and 
loyal men left to suffer without redress. 

44 Ibid., April 15. 

* Ibid., April 22. 

"J. P., vol. lv,—1906. 

47 (Ibid., vol. xxxii, 7039. 


CHAPTER VI 


Military and Political Reverses of 1863 

In the history of the restoration of civil institutions in 
Tennessee, the exciting summer months of 1862 are only an un¬ 
eventful interlude. No progress was possible while the rival 
armies wrestled desperately on her soil, her cities were turned 
into military camps or beleaguered strongholds, and raiding 
cavalry scoured the country. On only one section of the state, 
the west, was the hold of the Union army secure, as the result 
of Grant's victories in the spring, and that section, unfortunately 
for the progress of the Union cause, was overwhelmingly for 
the Confederacy. 

Despite the hostile public sentiment, an attempt was made 
to hold an election for municipal officers in Memphis on the 
26th of June, under the protection of the military. The Union 
ticket was the only one in the field, and only about seven 
hundred votes were cast. Fear kept many from the polls. The 
voters were required to take the oath of allegiance to the 
United States, which excluded many more. At a liberal esti¬ 
mate, not more than a third of the citizens then in the city 
voted. 1 John Park was re-elected mayor. The result could not 
be considered encouraging from a Union standpoint. The mass 
of the people declined actively to participate in the restoration 
of a civil government bearing the stamp of loyalty, heavily as 
they felt the burden of military rule. 2 

The Union men of the western counties, however, whose 
yearning for a government of laws did no violence to their 
political convictions, urged the governor to new efforts. He 
was deluged with petitions importuning him to hold the regular 
elections for members of the Federal Congress in the 9th and 
10th districts. County meetings pressed this course on him in 
resolutions. 3 

1 Memphis’ vote in peace times was nearly 5,000. 

1 New York Tribune, July 4, 1862. 

3 J. P., vol. xxvi passim. 


88 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Lincoln’s anxiety for signs of political regeneration in the 
border states was almost painful in its intensity. He watched 
eagerly for an excuse to push forward the boundaries within 
which the people themselves acknowledged the sovereignty of 
the United States. To this end, notwithstanding the precarious 
situation of the army, he sent, in October, commissioners to 
Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas, states in which the Union 
army had established itself, to stimulate popular sentiment favor¬ 
able to holding congressional and state elections and securing 
representation of the state in the Federal Senate. The gover¬ 
nors were requested to lend their heartiest cooperation to this 
movement. “In all available ways,” ran the instructions, “give 
the people a chance to express their wishes at these elections. 
Follow forms of law as far as convenient, but at all events 
get the expression of the largest number of the people possible. 
All see how such action will connect with and affect the proc¬ 
lamation of September 22. Of course the men elected should 
be gentlemen of character, willing to swear support to the 
Constitution, as of old, and known to be above reasonable 
suspicion of duplicity.” 4 

The proclamation of the 22d of September (1862) referred 
to by the president, was, of course, the famous one declaring 
the purpose of the war to be the restoration of the constitutional 
relations between the United States and the seceded states, 
asserting the purpose of the president to recommend com¬ 
pensation for the slaves in all states not in rebellion that 
should voluntarily free their bondmen, and announcing eman¬ 
cipation by the executive, on the 1st of January, 1863, of all 
slaves in the states still in arms against the government. 5 By 
promptly taking steps to reinstate herself as a member of the 
Union, Tennessee would therefore share in any financial relief 
afforded by Congress to loyal slave states and her own con¬ 
gressmen would have a hand in the measures adopted. The 
effect of the proclamation upon the slaveholders was immediate, 
but hardly such as to please or encourage Lincoln. Slaves 

* 0 . R. } series iii, vol. ii, p. 675. 

6 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. vi, p. 96. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 89 

were gathered up and carried south as expeditiously as possible. 
Whole plantations were depopulated. 6 

Although but cold comfort had been derived from his previous 
experiments with popular sentiment, Johnson resolved on one 
more attempt to gratify the president. On the 8th of December, 
he issued a proclamation 7 for elections on the 29th for mem¬ 
bers of Congress in the 9th and 10th districts, where the 
activity and the petitions of the Unionists encouraged some 
faint hopes of success. Pursuant to the policy of committing the 
restoration of the state to its conspicuously loyal citizens, the 
governor added to the legal requirements for electors that of 
loyalty established to the satisfaction of the judges of elections, 
who, on their part, were to take oath to exclude all persons 
whose devotion to the Union they suspected. 

The proclamation had announced the belief that a majority 
of the voters of these districts had given evidence of their 
allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States. 
The grounds for any such inference are not apparent. The 
districts, which lay along the Mississippi boundary and in¬ 
cluded Memphis, were in the cotton-growing section, devoted to 
slavery, and had been secessionist from the start. The citizens 
had acquiesced, perforce, in the military occupation, but, with 
few exceptions, expressions in favor of the Union were of the 
perfunctory, time-serving variety. The comment of a corre¬ 
spondent of the Indianapolis Sentinel regarding the “Unionism” 
of Nashville at this time, applies with even greater force to 
West Tennessee. A citizen with whom he has conversed, he 
says, is in favor of the Union “provided the government will 
agree to redeem the Confederate bonds with Lincoln greens. 
He thinks that all rebels should be pardoned in full, and 
Southern war expenses, including the cotton burnt, farms, rail¬ 
roads and bridges destroyed by both parties, and the general 
expenses should be assumed by the Washington government, 
and then the Constitution should be amended so as to guarantee 
a veto power at least to the Southern states. ... He assured 
me there was no other ‘kind of Unionism’ in this country, 

* Nashville Union, November 27. 

7 Ibid., December 9. 


90 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


except a few fanatics of the Andy Johnson school, who could 
not muster a corporal’s guard in all Tennessee. I guess the 
man is more than half right.” 8 

That this hardly overstated the attitude of the people, the 
governor must have appreciated after reading the resolutions 9 
adopted by a mass meeting of representatives of Hardeman, 
Haywood, and Fayette counties on the 15th of December to 
nominate a candidate for the 10th district. Starting with the 
observation that the time had come when Tennessee should be 
represented in Congress, on the principle that participation in 
governing one’s self is preferable to being governed by others, 
and declaring for “an honorable and speedy peace and a re¬ 
construction of the Union on the old terms of the Constitution,” 
the paper closed with instructions to the prospective represen¬ 
tative of the district “to oppose the emancipation proclamation 
of President Lincoln and to endeavor to procure the passage 
of some law which will enable masters to recover their fugitive 
slaves and which will enable loyal citizens to receive full pay¬ 
ment for all losses inflicted on them by the Federal army, 
including the loss of slaves.” This was arrant copperheadism. 
General Brayman, who commanded the post at Bolivar, reported 
the proceedings of the meeting to Johnson with the remark 
that resolutions so lacking in the patriotism demanded by the 
occasion could hardly aid the purpose of the government. 10 
Perhaps it was as well for the prestige of the president and 
the governor that a well-timed raid by Forrest on the day set 
for the elections prevented the opening of the polls and the 
registering of an insignificant vote or the choice of anti-ad¬ 
ministration congressmen. 11 

Indeed, the political situation depended entirely upon the 
success or failure of the army, and so far the army had done 
nothing decisive. Bragg and the guerillas remained in full 
force in the state. To eject them was now a part of the great 

8 Ibid., December 14. 

9 J. P., vol. xxviii, 6149. 

10 Ibid., 6148. 

11 Contested Election Cases, House of Representatives, 37th Congress, 
326 session, no. 46. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


91 


project conceived by the war department, involving the con¬ 
quest of the southwestern states by a simultaneous eastward 
advance of all the Federal forces from Tennessee on the north 
to Louisiana and Texas on the south, and the crowding back of 
the rebellion upon the Atlantic seaboard. In pursuance of this 
plan, Rosecrans took the offensive against Bragg, and, on the 
2d of January, 1863, defeated him at Stone River 12 and pushed 
him south to Tullahoma, thus almost recovering the position 
out of which Buell had been manoeuvred in August. The 
victory, so Johnson wrote to Lincoln, greatly rejoiced the friends 
of the Union and discouraged the Confederates, but increased 
their bitterness; still, not enough had been done. Nothing 
could accomplish so much to win back Tennessee as the eviction 
of the enemy from East Tennessee and the resulting conviction 
of the people that the government was succeeding in reestablish¬ 
ing its sway throughout the state. 13 

At this most critical juncture, the president’s emancipation 
proclamation appeared. From its operation Tennessee, alone 
of the seceding states, was excepted, and thus placed in a 
conspicuous and unique relation to the Federal government. 
The exception was made at Johnson’s request. 14 Tenacious of 
his pet theory that the states had never been out of the Union 
and that the loyal citizens of Tennessee retained in full vigor 
all their personal and property rights, he most earnestly desired 
them, in their sovereign capacity, to do away with the institution 
of slavery by their own voluntary act. Originally a slave-holder 
and a defender of slavery as based upon vested rights which 
the government was bound to respect, he had been impelled by 
the logic of events to the view that the institution was in¬ 
compatible with a free government and that one or the other 
must fall. This idea once grasped, his choice was made. The 
preservation of the “best government under Heaven” was his 
consuming passion. His stand was already taken early in 1862. 

u Popularly known as the Battle of Murfreesboro. The battle itself was 
hardly more than a draw, but the results favored the Union army. 

13 O. R. } series i, vol. xx, part ii, p. 317. 

14 J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i, p. 446. I can find no 
categorical confirmation of this statement, but it seems to have been gen¬ 
erally believed that Johnson was behind the measure. 


92 ANDREW JOHNSON 

At a gathering in Nashville on the 4th of July, he had said: 
“I am for this government above all earthly possessions, and 
if it perish, I do not want to survive it, I am for it, though 
slavery should be struck from existence and Africa swept from 
the balance of the world. I believe, indeed, that the Union is 
the only protection of slavery—its sole guarantee; but if you 
persist in forcing this issue of slavery against the government, 
I say, in the face of Heaven, give me my government and let 
the negro go!” 15 His devotion to the poor white laborers from 
whom he sprang and whose representative he was, and his 
enthusiasm for democracy and equality of opportunity made it 
easy for him to break with slavery as the source of privilege. 
“I am for a government based on and ruled by industrious, 
free white citizens, and conducted in conformity with their 
wants, and not a slave aristocracy,” he asserted. 16 The excep¬ 
tion of Tennessee from the proclamation, he told the president, 
had disappointed and disarmed many enemies of the govern¬ 
ment in the state. The important thing was to have the people 
understand it. 17 

Already in December, the Nashville Union, in close sympathy 
with Johnson, had come out definitely in favor of emancipation. 
Slavery, it mantained, had fallen as the direct result of the 
war. It could not exist under current conditions. The slave¬ 
owners were ruined. Their slaves were of no value to them, 
but rather a source of expense and further impoverishment. 
“Instead of adding their former reputed value to the wealth 
of the South, we have better reason to double the sum of 
their estimated value, and subtract it from our aggregate 
wealth.” 18 R. J. Meigs, a former attorney-general' of the state 
and a lawyer of distinction, urged not only that the slaves of 
rebels be seized as constituting part of their resources for 
continuing the war, but also that the right to hold them be 
annulled in order “to obtain security against a repetition of 
the wrong in the future.” 19 Late in February, Johnson himself 

18 Savage, The Life and Public Services of Andrew Johnson, p. 269. 

16 Nashville Union, August 25. 

17 O. R., series i, vol. xx, part if p. 317. 

18 Nashville Union, December 3. 

18 Ibid., June 27. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


93 


started on a speech-making tour through Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey and New York, and at Nashville, his point of 
departure, he delivered, on the 26th, an address, 20 the substance 
of which he repeated to the audiences all along his route. As 
always, his great theme was the preservation of the Union. 
“The time has come and is now open us,” he reiterated, “to 
teach the South and North that institutions are not to exist 
here that are more powerful than the government itself. If 
it is banks, put it down; if it is aristocracy, put it down; if it is 
slavery, put it down. . . . Has slavery a right to agitate 
the government and shake it to its center, and then deny to 
the government the privilege to agitate slavery? . . . Never 
ground your arms until the Constitution is enforced and the 
enemies put down. ... I say you dishonor yourselves and the 
graves of your offspring, if you let them sleep there upon the 
confines of a Confederacy established upon the remains of this 
government.” 

On the 23d of April, great interest and excitement were 
aroused by the publication of a declaration of principles 21 by 
the Nashville Union Club, “one of the largest and most intelligent 
associations which were ever organized in Tennessee.” 22 The 
members proclaimed their loyalty to the Constitution and the 
Union. Union leagues were to be formed throughout the 
state to assist in the work of restoration and to furnish the 
civil and military authorities with reliable information. The 
war must be continued until the rebellion was crushed, and 
all disloyal men must be deprived of their property and. ex¬ 
cluded from participation in the government and enjoyment of 
the franchise during a period of probation at least as long as 
that required of “unbiased and unprejudiced foreigners.” The 
lovers of freedom of every land were invited to settle in Ten¬ 
nessee in place of the traitorous aristocrats. Finally, an im¬ 
pressive and radical position was taken on the question of 
slavery. “We do most solemnly affirm, as the result of our 
life-long acquaintance, and of our intimate familiarity with all 

20 Ibid., March 3, 1863. 

21 Ibid., April 23. 

22 Ibid. 


94 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


its workings, that the institution of slavery tends to dishonor 
labor and smother enterprise; is incompatible with an intelligent 
public policy, sound morality, the safety and permanency of 
the Republic, the development of the resources of the state; 
that it roots out the industrious, and has the effect of lessening 
the free population of the country.” On these grounds its 
abolition was demanded at the earliest practicable time consistent 
with “safety to the slaves and justice to loyal masters.” 

The considerate treatment of Tennessee by the president on 
the slavery issue clearly helped the Union cause; but a far 
more invigorating tonic was the success of the Northern armies. 
Their hold on the western part of the state constantly strength¬ 
ened, while Bragg had been driven almost off its soil. Were he 
again defeated by Rosecrans, only a precipitate retreat would 
save Buckner in East Tennessee. The Confederates were dis¬ 
couraged. The magnitude to which the war had grown utterly 
surpassed anything they had dreamed of a year before. Their 
state was almost destroyed already. “They have,” said the 
Union, “awakened at last to a realization of the fact that the 
civil war is involving them in a ruin which if prolonged a few 
months, will be remediless, so far as they personally are con¬ 
cerned, while a future of unknown horrors will await their 
innocent children.” 23 Real love for the Union had made no 
perceptible progress. The great majority would doubtless still 
have rejoiced at the expulsion of the Union army from the> 
state, but this, it became more and more apparent, was im¬ 
possible. Their slaves ran away or were carried off and the 
owners left destitute. Foraging parties stripped the farms. 
The citizens themselves were conscripted by the Confederates, 
particularly the poorer classes, who began to realize that they 
were fighting and suffering for a cause the success of which 
would bring them nothing better than they had had in peace 
under the old government. Abstract theories of states’ rights 
and sovereignty had little place in hearts torn with anguish 
for the death of loved ones and the loss of all earthly posses¬ 
sions. Many who had sought the dissolution of the Union 


“Ibid., January 27. 


95 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 

were now eager, from utter exhaustion and misery, to give up 
the struggle and accept any settlement that would bring peace, 

The month of June witnessed the final episode in the political 
history of the Confederacy in Tennessee. According to the 
state constitution, the regular congressional elections fell in 
August of the current year, and the Union party hoped for 
a victory by Rosecrans in time to stimulate the movement for 
peace and restoration and afford assurances against a repetition 
of the fiasco of the previous December. That the secessionists, 
whose hold in the state was restricted practically to East Ten¬ 
nessee, indubitably hostile to them, would also attempt an election, 
could hardly have been anticipated. However, in May, a proc¬ 
lamation by Governor Harris and an unsigned call published 
in the Chattanooga Rebel of May 23d announced a convention 
to be held at Winchester, in Franklin county, on the 17th of 
June, to select candidates for governor and a general congres¬ 
sional ticket. “It is more important,” declared the call, “that 
this duty should be performed now than at any other previous 
period in our history. We must exhibit to the enemy our 
unalterable firmness of purpose and determination to preserve 
and perpetuate our free institutions.” As the Union armies 
dominated the state, no regular method of naming the delegates 
was possible. Both the citizens and the Tennessee regiments 
in the Confederate service were requested to send representatives 
chosen by public meetings “or such other mode as they may 
deem best,” and exiles and representatives from counties within 
the enemy’s lines were invited to attend for their counties. 

The convention which assembled in response to this call was, 
of course, in no legal sense representative. It decided to regard 
“all loyal citizens of the state” present as delegates for their 
respective counties, many of which were within the lines of 
the Union army. Resolutions of endorsement and thanks to 
Governor Harris were adopted and Harris himself addressed 
the meeting. Judge Robert L. Caruthers was nominated for 
governor on the third ballot and a full congressional ticket was 
also drawn up. 24 


M Ibid., May 30, June 28; Nashville Dispatch, June 27. 


96 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Meanwhile, the Union leaders had not been blind to the 
advantages of an election in August under the sanction of the 
state constitution and the control of the army. Their call, 
signed by Maynard, Brownlow and others, appeared on the 
20th of June and, in purposely vague terms, summoned “those 
who desire to maintain the state government in connection with 
the Federal Union as it stood prior to the rebellion and the war” 
to meet at the capitol in Nashville on the ist of July. 25 Irregu¬ 
larities characterized this convention 26 as well as its Confederate 
predecessor at Winchester. Refugees from East Tennessee and 
other sections, where no delegates could be chosen, and soldiers 
from Tennessee regiments were admitted to seats. Forty counties 
were represented and each county was, by resolution of the 
convention, allowed one vote for every five thousand white 
inhabitants. 

Those who hoped for a complete harmony of thought and 
action among the Unionists were promptly disappointed by the 
appearance of dissension on several points of high importance. 
First, the delegates disagreed vigorously as to the purpose and 
powers of the convention. The radicals wished it to nominate 
candidates for Congress and the state legislature. Many favored 
the nomination of a civil governor and all the other state officers, 
to be elected at the same time as the legislature. To omit 
these from the ticket, they held, was to depart unnecessarily 
from the constitution, which required the election of all the 
officers in August. Moreover, to have a military governor, who 
was not responsible to the people of the state, to deal with an 
elected legislature, would produce a hopeless jumble of authority. 
A resolution, championed by J. B. Bingham of Memphis, pro¬ 
posed that the convention itself constitute Governor Johnson 
provisional governor of the state—thus, in the view of its pro¬ 
jectors, fortifying him with the sanction of the people whom 
the delegates professed to represent—and request him to issue 
writs of election and appoint the necessary agents to enable the 
people to elect all the state officers provided for in the con¬ 
stitution on the day fixed by that instrument. Another resolu- 

* Nashville^ Union, June 23. 

M Ibid., July 2-8, July 18; Nashville Dispatch, July 3. 



MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


97 


tion contemplated the election by the convention of a governor’s 
council of three members, to consult with and advise Johnson 
in the interests of the people until the full civil government 
could be restored. 

On the other hand, it was pointed out that the convention 
was in no proper sense a representative body, but at best only an 
irregular assembly of loyal citizens, for the purpose of taking 
counsel with and advising the governor. It was ridiculous to 
assume that such a body could do what the president of the 
United States himself could not do—make Johnson a provisional 
governor. The president could only make him military governor 
by virtue of the war power. No civil functions could be ex¬ 
ercised in Tennessee except in accordance with the state con¬ 
stitution or through the action of the sovereign people. Since 
the constitution had been thrown out of gear by the rebellion, 

the people must act, and their first action could not be along 

the lines prescribed by the constitution, but must be an irregular 
action to restore regularity, and the military governor was 
in Tennessee for the express purpose of starting and directing 

the movement of the people. His power was not derived from 

the disordered state constitution nor from the people of Ten¬ 
nessee at all, but from the president. Power so derived was 
plenary for the purpose contemplated. A civil governor and 
other state executive officers represented the people of the state 
as a whole. They could not properly be chosen until the state 
was entirely clear of the enemy. This position was stoutly 
maintained by the East Tennesseeans. Their section, they said, 
was the most loyal part of the state, but it was at present in 
the grip of the Confederacy, and to elect a governor now would 
be to commit his choice to the less loyal districts of Middle 
and West Tennessee. To “carry the ballot-box” to the East 
Tennesseeans in the army, as had been proposed, was no ade¬ 
quate remedy for this grievance. Thousands of East Tennessee 
loyalists were refugees or held down by terrorism and were 
not in the army at all. The legislature, on the contrary, was 
chosen not for the state as a whole, but for districts. There 
was, therefore, no reason why all districts protected by the 
Union army should not elect legislators in August. The legis- 


98 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


lature could assemble on the day fixed by law and adjourn 
from day to day until, by the freeing of more districts and 
the election of members from them, a quorum should be ob¬ 
tained. It could then proceed to redistrict the state and make 
provision for future congressional and legislative elections, the 
machinery for which could be put in motion by the military 
governor, who had full power to appoint sheriffs, judges of 
elections, and other necessary officials, while, at the same time, 
his military resources would protect the ballot-box from attack. 

The latter view finally prevailed. The resolutions adopted 
declared all laws, resolutions, and ordinances passed by the 
legislature of Tennessee since April 12, 1861, the work of 
usurpation and void, approved the action of the president in 
appointing a military governor, indorsed Governor Johnson’s 
administration, emphasized the importance of electing a state leg¬ 
islature, and requested the military governor to issue writs and 
appoint agents for such an election, to be held on the first 
Thursday in August, or as soon thereafter as might be ex¬ 
pedient. The convention also named a Union state executive 
committee, consisting of Horace Maynard, W- G. Brownlow 
and John A. Campbell for East Tennessee; M. M. Brien, William 
P. Jones and Horace H. Harrison for Middle Tennessee; and 
J. B. Bingham, J. M. Tomeny, and J. Leftrick for West Ten¬ 
nessee—a sort of standing committee, to keep an eye on the 
political situation and call another convention whenever they 
deemed it desirable. 

The convention had been held under cover of the renewed 
activity of the army. Since his victory at Stone River in 
January, Rosecrans had remained near Murfreesboro, facing 
Bragg, who had taken position north of Tullahoma. The Union 
general’s purpose was not to fight a pitched battle at once, but 
to prevent Bragg from cooperating with Johnston in Mississippi 
until Grant disposed of the latter, after which the armies of 
the Tennessee and the Cumberland would be far too strong for 
any force that could be brought against them, and Bragg 
would be compelled to flee southward, with the possibility of 
being demoralized and routed on the way. In June, however, 
information reached the war department that Bragg, while 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


99 


amusing Rosecrans, was sending off reinforcements to both 
Johnston and Lee. To prevent this, an immediate attack was 
determined upon. While Rosecrans struck directly at Bragg, 
Burnside, with the army of the Ohio, was to invade East 
Tennessee, clear that district, and press southward toward 
Chattanooga to cooperate with Rosecrans, in case Bragg should 
turn on him. On the 24th, Rosecrans, by a flanking march 
through Hoover’s and Liberty Gaps to Manchester, succeeded 
in turning Bragg’s position at Tullahoma. The Confederates 
were forced to abandon their whole line and fall back to 
Chattanooga, which they strongly fortified. This reverse was 
demoralizing to them, and even more so to their interests in 
Tennessee. Though Burnside was delayed and did not enter 
East Tennessee until the end of August, the rest of the state 
was held by the Federal armies in July. 

The regular election day was, nevertheless, allowed to pass 
without any official action by the governor. He still adhered 
to his oft expressed conviction, strengthened by sad experience, 
that no adequate Union strength could be developed in the 
state while the guerillas remained to menace the inhabitants and 
East Tennessee was unredeemed. That this was the wise and 
proper course, anyone who cared to review the history of past 
failures must have conceded, but insinuations were not lacking 
that Johnson was neglecting opportunities to perform his clear 
duty, for the purpose of perpetuating his power, further per¬ 
secuting the aristocracy, and having his own way. 

The Confederates, it seems, held some sort of an election on 
the 4th of August, for Judge Caruthers was declared governor 
and Tennessee representatives were admitted to the Richmond 
Congress. The vote, except by Tennesseeans in the Confederate 
army, must have been infinitesimal, and the whole proceeding 
was but an empty formality, so far as any effect in Tennessee 
was concerned. 27 

Far more annoying to the administration was an election held 
on the same date by the conservative Union party in the state, 
opposed to Johnson, for the purpose of ousting him from 
power. This party was headed by Emerson Etheridge, who had 

2T Miller’s Manual of Tennessee, p. 46. 


100 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


been one of the most prominent and outspoken Union leaders 
in East Tennessee during the secession period. An impressive, 
bold speaker, of imposing presence and much fascination of 
manner, he drew after him a considerable personal following. 
Passionate in his attachment to the Union, he had broken with 
the radicals on the slavery issue and violently opposed the 
president’s emancipation policy. He also assailed Johnson as 
half-hearted in his efforts to restore order in the state, and 
intimated that his devotion was rather to the cause of the 
negro than to the cause of peace. His enemies retorted with 
the cry of “Copperhead!” and explained his assaults on Johnson 
as the bitter fruit of a disappointed ambition for the governor’s 
place. 

The scheme devised by Etheridge and his friends was to get 
out a vote for governor on the day fixed by the state constitution, 
whether an election was ordered by Johnson or not; indeed, 
they much preferred that the latter should remain quiescent, 
for, in that case, their candidate seemed certain of a majority 
of the vote cast and, under the constitution, would be the 
legal governor by action of the people. This project was, in 
part, actually carried out. By whatever means, some sort of 
an election was held in Shelby, Bedford, and perhaps one 
other county, and at least 2,500 votes were cast. The only 
authority for such a proceeding was the clause in the state 
constitution concerning elections, and all the legally prescribed 
preliminaries of a regular election were wanting. Nobody had 
proclaimed one except Governor Harris. Johnson had remained 
entirely passive. There were no county officers to appoint judges 
of elections. It was difficult to see how any governor could 
maintain himself in the state except by the support of the 
bayonets of the army. Yet the Etheridge party declared that 
their candidate, General W. B. Campbell, had received all the 
votes cast and was legally chosen civil governor, and Etheridge 
himself went to Washington, and urged the president to rec¬ 
ognize and instate Campbell. His failure in this mission was 
a foregone conclusion. Campbell’s position was, indeed, ridicu¬ 
lous; and the Nashville Union even asserted that another man, 
friendly to the administration, had actually received several 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE ioi 

hundred more votes than Campbell at the abortive election. 
Probably there was no way of proving or disproving any state¬ 
ment that either party cared to make. For practical purposes, 
the episode only furnished unfortunate evidence of the division 
in the ranks of the Unionists and so tended to encourage the 
“neutral” pro-slavery people and embarrass the government. 28 

By the middle of August, Rosecrans had established a de¬ 
pendable line of communications by repairing the railroad from 
Nashville, his depot, to Stevenson, Alabama, and was ready to 
undertake the difficult movement from the latter point against 
Chattanooga. His army proceeded cautiously over and between 
the mountain ridges which covered the city and, by the first 
of September, his right wing had reached Lookout Mountain 
and threatened to cut Bragg’s communications with the South. 
Simultaneously, Burnside made his way over the mountains from 
Kentucky into East Tennessee, the Confederates under Buckner 
retiring before him. The loyal East Tennesseeans, who, since 
the beginning of the war, had been left to the mercy of the 
enemy and had paid for their devotion to the Union with their 
property and frequently with the risk of their lives, received 
their liberators with transports of joy and lavished upon officers 
and soldiers food and clothing from their scanty store. On the 
1st of September, Burnside occupied Knoxville, and, on the 
9th, General Shackelford captured the entire Confederate force 
at Cumberland Gap, with its artillery and supplies. The. army 
then advanced rapidly southward to cooperate with Rosecrans 
and attack Chattanooga from the north. Already, on the 8th, 
however, Bragg had realized his predicament and had fallen 
back into Georgia, while Rosecrans followed him closely through 
the dangerous mountain passes. 

These successes filled Johnson with joy. At last, it seemed, 
the nerve-racking alternation of bright hopes and sickening dis¬ 
appointments was to end in the redemption of his state. Bragg 
had been driven over the border; for the first time East Ten¬ 
nessee was free. The armies of the Confederacy were apparently 
in full retreat: it remained only to attend to the guerillas; then, 

28 Nashville Union, October i, October 4; Memphis Argus , September 
4; J. P., vol. xxxiii, 72 / 9 - 


102 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


in security and confidence, the Union men would answer the 
summons to the polls and restoration would be an accomplished 
fact. The secessionists were crushed by the disasters that had 
befallen their arms and the feeling gained ground among them 
that their only possible oourse was to make the best of an in¬ 
evitable situation. Moderate Unionists throughout the state 
implored the government to take advantage of this reaction to 
enlist as many Tennesseeans as possible in the work of recon¬ 
struction. As early as the 4th of August, the Nashville Press 
had pointed out that, if only invariable loyalists were allowed 
to participate, probably not one-tenth of the former citizens 
could qualify, and urged the inclusion of “all who are now 
ready to act with us, regardless of antecedents.” Otherwise, it 
observed, the Union party would remain in a hopeless minority 
for twenty years. 

Johnson himself was disposed to smooth the path for the return 
of the rank and file of the disaffected to their old allegiance. 
Weight of numbers, he knew, was of the utmost importance in 
sustaining the new structure he proposed to erect. Toward the 
secession leaders, on the contrary, he was implacable. “Many 
humble men,” he said, “the peasantry and yeomanry of the 
South, who have been decoyed, or perhaps driven into the re¬ 
bellion, may look forward with reasonable hope for an amnesty. 
But the intelligent and influential leaders must suffer. The tall 
poppies must be struck down.” 29 To moral reprobation of con¬ 
scious, deliberate treason was added the fear that the secessionist 
chiefs, if admitted to pardon and allowed to recover the rights 
of citizens, would, once the army was withdrawn, regain their 
ascendency with the people and use it to depose the Union 
leaders and visit them with retribution. “We wonder,” re¬ 
marked the Nashville Union, “how many of the Union men of 
Nashville would have received an amnesty, and how many se¬ 
questrated Northern debts would have been paid, had this plot 
succeeded. . . . If treason be not a crime, then strike the word 
crime from the lexicon; if a traitor be not the greatest of all 
criminals, and the southern rebel leaders the greatest of all 
traitors, then let felons be honored with an apotheosis, and let 


“Nashville Union, August 25. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


103 


us canonize the names -enrolled on the Newgate calendar/’ 30 
On the 5th, the Union published an “officially authorized” 
statement of the governor’s own policy. “Governor Johnson,” 
it declared, “proposes issuing writs of election for a legislature, 
at the very earliest practicable day; that is, when the progress 
of our military operations is such that loyal citizens can go 
to the polls in safety, and when sympathizers of the rebellion 
will no longer dare, backed by the presence of Confederate 
troops and by guerilla terrorism, to control the policy of the 
state. Regard will also be had to the disposition manifested 
by the people to resume their former privileges in the Federal 
Union. They must indicate in some way a desire to vote for 
their officers, as loyal citizens. Elections will not be forced upon 
them against their will. . . . The delay in issuing writs of 
election hitherto has been, as all intelligent observers must have 
seen, not a matter of choice, but of inexorable and painful 
necessity. Practically, it has been impossible to hold Union 
meetings of the people, or go through the form of election in 
one-fifth of the counties of Tennessee. We doubt whether any 
one of those who have been most urgent for holding elections 
and restoring civil government would at any time within the 
past twelve months have run the risk of making speeches for 
the Union and against the rebel government at any precinct ten 
miles from a Federal encampment. Throughout the state at 
large the loyal people are unorganized, while the ramifications 
of rebel organization extend everywhere, in the shape of cavalry 
bands, or guerilla troops, organized for pillage and murder, or 
such lodges as Knights of the Golden Circle. . . . Why issue a 
writ of election for a county, when a guerilla band of from 
twenty to fifty might visit every precinct in the county on the 
day of election? We must bear in mind that the people, es¬ 
pecially all the loyal people, have been disarmed and can’t defend 
themselves. ... To invite the people to vote for loyal can¬ 
didates under these circumstances, before the overthrow and 
complete expulsion of the rebel military power, would be to 
invite both people and candidates to destruction. ... It is the 
ardent desire of the government that Tennessee shall also be 


30 Ibid., August 26. 


104 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


represented in the national councils, as soon as practicable, and 
writs of election will be issued for the purpose of electing con¬ 
gressmen. It is the intention also to appoint judges for the 
county and circuit courts, to hold office pro tempore, until their 
successors can be regularly elected. In brief, it is designed to 
restore all the branches of the state government, in some cases 
by temporary appointment, and in all cases by elections so 
soon as the condition of the state will admit of such a step.” 

Economic reasons were not lacking to reinforce the political 
arguments for reconstruction. Save in Nashville, Memphis, 
and a few other points relieved by the disbursements of the 
occupying army, the people of Tennessee were in very real dis¬ 
tress. The country had been stripped almost bare by the con¬ 
tending forces. Millions of dollars beyond the production of 
the last two years would, in the opinion of the Nashville Press, 
be required to save the people from starvation and nakedness. 
Since the products of the state had dwindled into insignificance, 
purchasers of supplies had been compelled to draw on their 
reserve of capital and to pay from it at the advanced prices 
resulting from the inflation of the currency and other conditions 
brought on by the war. The average advance in prices in two 
years was estimated at one hundred per cent. The only possible 
alleviation would come, thought the Press, through a return to 
loyalty. Tennessee would then become the basis of supply for 
the Union army. As such, her agriculture and industries would 
be most carefully protected and “instead of being harried and 
stripped as she has been and still is by Federal armies that 
won’t pay rebels and by Confederates that can’t pay anybody,” 
her products would command high prices in good money. 31 

On the nth of August, General Hurlbut, the Federal com¬ 
mander at Memphis, expressed to Lincoln his belief that Ten¬ 
nessee was prepared to adopt a fair system of gradual emanci¬ 
pation and return to the Union. As soon as East Tennessee 
should be liberated and able to participate in the work, he advised 
that a legislature be elected, which, in turn, should call a 
convention, and restoration could be accomplished in sixty days. 
“Then,” he comments with sober naivete, “we can use upon the 

91 Nashville Press, August 7. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 105 

Tennessee troops in Southern service the same tremendous lever 
of state pride and state authority which forced them into hostile 
ranks. ’ 32 Hurlbut did not disclose the source of his information 
as to this remarkable prospective face-about by the West Ten¬ 
nesseeans. He seems to have shut his eyes to the fact that 
the real levers which forced them into the Southern army— 
personal conviction and an all but unanimous public sentiment— 
would not be available to force them out again, even if a 
handful of citizens should succeed in going through the forms of 
a loyal election. 

Coincidently with the advance of Rosecrans and Burnside, 
Charles A. Dana, the assistant secretary of war, visited Tennessee 
to observe the operations of the armies and their effect on 
political conditions in the border states, and, on the 8th of 
September, he had a most interesting interview with Johnson. 33 
The governor was greatly cheered by the aspect of affairs, and 
particularly by the realization of his hopes for East Tennessee. 
There was now, he thought, every prospect of a successful re¬ 
construction, and the work was to be pushed. He proposed 
promptly to appoint the judges and set the courts in operation, 
and to follow this up by proclaiming a general election in the 
first week in December for a governor and other state officers, 
a legislature, and members of Congress. Care would be taken 
that only loyal citizens voted or were candidates for office. 
When the legislature assembled, he would urge on it immediate, 
unconditional emancipation, both as a moral obligation and as 
an indispensable inducement to the immigration of the free labor 
necessary to repeople the state and develop its resources. In 
his opinion, slavery was, in fact, already dead in Tennessee, 
but it was desirable to abolish it legally, and he expressed no 
doubt that the legislature would do so, though immediate eman¬ 
cipation was not certain. The great majority of the people now 
favored freeing the negro, but were in doubt regarding his status 
after he was freed. The movements of the army, the governor 
complained, were much too slow; months of precious time had 
been wasted in constructing useless fortifications. Rosecrans 

82 O. R., series, i, vol. xxiv, part in, p. 588. 

38 Ibid., vol. xxx, part i, p. 182. 


io6 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


was a patriot at heart, but he had fallen under bad influences. 
Truesdail was holding up the whole army while he and his 
friends fattened on contracts. 

For some months, Johnson had been in correspondence with 
the president regarding the proper time and method for restoring 
the state. He had visited Washington in the spring and sub¬ 
mitted to Lincoln a complete proposition embodying his views 
and the results of his experience, which the latter had approved. 34 
Thus all was in readiness for immediate action as soon as a 
decisive victory by Rosecrans and Burnside should furnish as¬ 
surance that the Union occupation of the state was to be per¬ 
manent. The events of early September were to Lincoln the 
turning of the tide, so long and painfully awaited. On receiving 
the news of Bragg’s evacuation of Chattanooga, he telegraphed 
to Johnson: “All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrec¬ 
tionists. You need not be reminded that it is the nick of time 
for reinaugurating a loyal state government. Not a moment 
should be; lost. You and the cooperating friends there can better 
judge of the way and means than can be judged by any here. 
I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must not be 
such as to give control of the state and its representation in 
Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there 
into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have 
been profitless to both state and nation if it so ends that Gov¬ 
ernor Johnson is put down and Governor Harris is put up. 
It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the recon¬ 
struction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for 
the Union. Exclude all others; and trust that your govern¬ 
ment so organized will be recognized here as being the one of 
republican form to be guaranteed to the state, and to be pro¬ 
tected against invasion and domestic violence. It is something 
on the question of time to remember that it cannot be known 
who is next to occupy the position I now hold nor what he will 
do. I see that you have declared in favor of emancipation in 
Tennessee, for which may God bless you. Get emancipation 
into your new state government—constitution—and there will be 
no such word as fail for your case.” 35 

34 Ibid., series iii, vol. iii, p. 819; J. P. vol. xxxiv, 7447. 

“O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 789; Lincoln’s Complete Works, vol. ix, p. 116. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


107 


These injunctions of Lincoln have been quoted at length, be¬ 
cause they are the very best answer to some of the severest 
criticisms on Johnson’s acts in 1864. Johnson was in complete 
accord with the president, but, appreciating the gravity of the 
step he was about to take, he requested a delegation of authority 
directly from Lincoln, under the clause of the Federal Con¬ 
stitution securing to each state a republican form of government, 
to exercise all powers necessary for that purpose. 36 This he 
promptly received, substantially in the terms he suggested, but 
with two modifications which the president designed to remove 
every impediment to his freedom of action. Instead of being 
authorized himself to carry out the constitutional guarantee, 
he was empowered so to act as to require the government to 
do so; and a clause in his original draft committing him to 
the ante-bellum constitution of Tennessee was dropped by Lincoln, 
lest it embarrass a movement to frame an entirely new con¬ 
stitution. 37 

The machinery of agitation was at once put in motion to 
create interest in the coming event. Mass meetings were held 
in all parts of the state. Johnson himself was a frequent and 
forceful speaker. His efforts were chiefly directed to showing 
that the process of reconstruction was a natural and painless 
one and would bring only good to the people—like the restora¬ 
tion of the human body from sickness to health. “Here lies 
your state,” he said, “a sick man in his bed, emancipated and 
exhausted, paralyzed in all his powers, and unable to walk 
alone. The physician comes. . . . The United States sends an 
agent, or a military governor, whichever you please to call him, 
to aid you in restoring your government.” He outlined the 
method the administration proposed to adopt, and declared that 
only the obstinacy of the citizens prevented the immediate and 
thorough cure of their sick state. 38 

Without warning, all these high hopes were dashed and the 
Unionists crushed back in despair—for again the army failed. 
Rosecrans, believing that Bragg’s reverses had completely de- 

M O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 823. 

37 Ibid, p. 825. 

38 Frank Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. xxix. 


io8 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


moralized him, eager, if possible, to destroy his force, and 
stung, perhaps, by complaints of his former sluggishness, pur¬ 
sued the Confederates hotly through the mountains, dividing 
his army to expedite his progress. Bragg, however, was in no 
such straits as Rosecrans supposed. He had his men in hand 
and, what was far more important, he had received Longstreet’s 
entire corps from Lee’s army as a reinforcement. Suddenly 
he turned upon the pursuing foe before they could emerge from 
the mountains. Rosecrans was taken aback and his confidence 
gave place to alarm. By desperate efforts he succeeded in ex¬ 
tricating his army from the immediate danger of being destroyed 
piecemeal and; by a retrograde movement, concentrated it near 
Chickamauga Creek, but he had been shaken and unnerved, the 
elan of the advance was gone and, when Bragg pressed the 
attack, he seemed bewildered. A vaguely worded order opened a 
gap in the Union line, into which the enemy thrust themselves, 
smashing Rosecrans’ whole right and centre and scattering them 
in confusion. Only the heroic stand of General Thomas with 
the left averted a rout, and allowed the broken troops to recover 
and make good their retreat to Chattanooga. 39 This victory 
enabled Bragg to detach Longstreet to operate against Burn¬ 
side and, by the middle of November, the army of the Ohio 
had been driven out of all the southern part of East Tennessee 
and was shut up in Knoxville, short of supplies and in the 
gravest danger. Most of what had been gained by the laborious 
efforts of the summer was lost again, and the president and 
governor could but resume their weary vigil and abandon any 
idea of reconstructing Tennessee during the immediate future. 

Nothing daunted by these disasters, the Federal government 
projected a fall and winter campaign on a grander scale than 
before. Rosecrans was relieved and Thomas succeeded him 
in the department of the Cumberland. The three departments 
of Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio, were placed under the 
command of General Grant, and with this splendid army he 
proceeded to retrieve the Union cause by ian uninterrupted 

59 Chickamauga still provides material for debate and recrimination. 
The latest work on the subject is A. Grade’s The Truth about Chicka¬ 
mauga. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 109 


series of decisive victories. The battles of Lookout Mountain 
(November 24) and Missionary Ridge (November 25) at 
last shattered Bragg and drove him in confusion into Georgia; 
and Sherman, hastening to the relief of Burnside at Knoxville, 
compelled Longstreet, after a last desperate attempt to take the 
city by storm, to retreat precipitately into Virginia (December). 
The danger of a permanent Confederate occupation of Tennessee 
had finally disappeared. 


CHAPTER VII 


Progress of Reorganization 

From the outbreak of the war until the first of December, 
1863, the most important factor in Tennessee history had been 
the army. Governor Johnson was obliged to accept a subor¬ 
dinate role, defer to the military policy of the generals, and 
steer his course in accordance with their successes and failures. 
But, after that date, the positions were reversed. The victories 
of Grant carried the Union flag forward to other fields; the 
process of reconstruction holds the centre of the stage and 
suffers but one serious interruption—from the invasion of Hood 
in November, 1864. 

The campaigns of 1863 had at last brought to the front 
generals, Grant, Sherman, and Thomas, to whom the president 
was convinced he could safely entrust the destruction of the 
now tottering Confederacy, while he devoted himself to the 
grateful task of restoring the Union and leading a reunited nation 
to bury in oblivion the bitterness engendered by civil strife. To 
this he bent his energy “with malice toward none, with charity 
for all,” and his magnanimous nature found a happy relief in 
turning from the contriving of ruin to a labor of love. 

Lincoln’s policy is embodied in his proclamation of amnesty 
and reconstruction 1 of the 8th of December, 1863. This familiar 
document has been the subject of such detailed examination 
and discussion that only the barest summary of its provisions 
need be given here. By virtue of the Constitution and the acts 
of Congress, the president offered a full pardon to all persons, 
with the exception of certain specified classes, who had par¬ 
ticipated in the rebellion, and proposed to restore to them all 
their property rights, except as to slaves and in cases where 
rights of third parties had intervened, on condition of their 
taking a solemn oath henceforth faithfully to “support, protect 
and defend the Constitution of the United States and the 
Union of the states thereunder” and all acts of Congress and 


1 Annual Cyclopedia, 1863, p. 781. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


III 


proclamations of the president relating to slaves passed during 
the war, so far as these were not modified by the proper legal au¬ 
thorities. Whenever, in any state, a number of persons, qualified 
as voters in that state under the election laws in force previous 
to the act of secession and equal to one-tenth of those voting 
in the state at the presidential election of i860, should, after 
taking the amnesty oath, reestablish a state government, republi¬ 
can in character and not in contravention of that oath, such 
government should be recognized as the true government of the 
state, entitled to all the guarantees and protection promised by 
the Constitution. 

So far as Tennessee was concerned, there was every reason 
to expect that a far greater proportion than the required one- 
tenth would participate in the work of restoration. The mani¬ 
fest weakening of the Confederacy and the inducements to loyalty 
held out in the conciliatory messages and speeches of Lincoln 
and Johnson had produced among the despairing, war-weary 
population a sort of latent Unionism—or rather, perhaps, a dis¬ 
position to acquiesce in any honorable settlement that would 
bring peace—which only awaited the absolute assurance that 
the rebellion was crushed in order to declare itself. The pro¬ 
nounced Unionists were pushing actively for reconstruction, 
which meant for them political plums as well as personal security. 
The Nashville council of the Union League—an organization 
claiming to represent sixty thousand voters, with branches 
throughout the state, formed to protect Union men and further 
the Union cause—presented resolutions to Johnson in November, 
which were indorsed by several of the allied councils. 2 These 
begged the governor to declare null and void all elections and 
appointments that had occurred in Tennessee, pronounce all civil 
offices vacant, and fill them himself with unquestioned, uncon¬ 
ditional Union men. The officers of Davidson county, they 
pointed out, were chosen under the rule of the Confederacy. 
The common council of Nashville contained former well-known 
rebel sympathizers, and two-thirds of their appointees were of 
doubtful loyalty. Such men could not be trusted to protect 
the property of the government and its adherents. No election 

2 J. P., vol. xxxviii, 8429. 


112 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


should be held until East Tennessee was free from rebel domina¬ 
tion. A final resolution laid down the “broad platform of Our 
Country, let Our Country be right or wrong” The council 
of the German members of the league went even further. They 
indicted slavery as “contrary to reason and repulsive to hu¬ 
manity,” “based on compromise and by no means on divine or 
human right,” and degrading to labor, declared that its abolition 
would bring prosperity and happiness to the South, and favored 
the continuation of Johnson’s government until the people had 
given ample proof of their loyalty and were ready to incorporate 
a prohibition of slavery in their constitution. 3 

On the other hand, a mass meeting at Memphis, on the 26th 
of December, petitioned for the speedy establishment of civil 
government in accordance with Lincoln’s proclamation. On 
those terms, they believed, two-thirds of the remaining resi¬ 
dents of Memphis and half those of the rural sections of the 
same congressional district would favor restoration. They sug¬ 
gested that the administering of the oath, the registration of 
those taking it, and the election of delegates to a convention 
should all occur simultaneously, and if the total vote reached 
the necessary tenth, the convention could assemble without 
delay. 4 From Knoxville came requests for the institution of a 
Federal court to try political offences an*d violations of the 
treasury regulations and compensate Unionist creditors out of 
enemies’ property still available for that purpose, but being 
rapidly destroyed or carried away. 5 * Thomas, from Chattanooga, 
assured the governor that the revival of civil authority would 
restore confidence and reinforce the Unionists by many who 
still delayed, uncertain of the intentions of the government.® 
About the middle of January, 1864, Lincoln sent to Tennessee, 
as he already had to other states, an agent with blanks and 
instructions to enroll citizens who would take the oath. 7 

Two difficulties in connection with the oath arose to perplex 

3 Ibid., vol. xxxvii, 8160. 

4 Ibid., vol. xxxviii, 8296. 

6 Ibid., 8455 , 8499. 

* O. R., series i, vol. xxxii, part ii, p. 64. 

7 Nicholay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. viii, p. 443. 



MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


ii3 

Johnson. The first, as to the proper officers to administer it, 
was promptly resolved by the president’s explanation that this 
might be done by the military governor, the commander of the 
department, and “all persons designated by them for that pur¬ 
pose .” 8 A second complication was far more serious. A decided 
objection to taking the oath at all developed among those who 
had been unswerving Unionists from the beginning, on the 
ground that such a requirement implied a doubt as to their 
notorious loyalty and placed them in the same category with 
repentant rebels . 9 Lincoln, however, was explicit that the oath 
should be taken by loyal as well as disloyal. “It does not hurt 
them,” he said, “clears all question as to the right to vote, and 
swells the aggregate number who take it, which is an important 
object .” 10 From this statement it appears that Lincoln originally 
intended subscription to his oath to carry with it the franchise. 
Such was certainly the general view at the time, and, on that 
assumption, General S. P. Carter had suggested that the de¬ 
mands of the “notorious Unionists” for a sharp distinction be¬ 
tween them and the disloyalists who had recovered the ballot 
with amnesty be met by dividing the oath-takers into two 
separate lists—a loyal men’s record and a disloyal men’s record— 
the former to constitute a roll of honor from which the names of 
those against whom any defection from allegiance could be 
shown should be excluded . 11 

With Johnson, vindictive by nature and worn out and aggra¬ 
vated by two years of constant futile attempts to make some 
impression upon the stubborn inertia of a population always 
disloyal at heart, the magnanimous views of Lincoln found little 
sympathy. Before the middle of January, in a letter to Horace 
Maynard intended for the president’s eye, he had expressed his 
opinion that the voters “should be put to the severest test .” 12 
His contention, as stated by the Nashville Union, was that the 

8 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, pp. 31, 46; J. P-, vol. xxxix, 8521. 

9 Nicholay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. viii, p. 444; Nashville Union, 
January 2 J 1864. 

10 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, p. 46. 

11 Nashville Union, February 16. 

12 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, p. 31. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


114 

amnesty oath should be regarded simply as securing a pardon for 
traitors who desired it; “one who takes it sets himself right 
again with lawful authority .” 13 By no means all who were ad¬ 
mitted to it should, by that act alone, gain the ballot. The 
clamor of the loyalists against being classed indiscriminately 
with newly returned prodigals afforded him a chance to advance 
a new proposition in accord with his own ideas—that a second 
and more stringent oath be required of voters, which should 
at once distinguish them from those who, though not whole¬ 
heartedly regenerate, had gained amnesty, and should bind them 
unequivocally and actively'to the Union party. T 

Once determined upon the course to be pursued, he lost no 
time in setting to work. Presumably at his instigation, a mass 
meeting assembled at the capitol in Nashville on the 21st of 
January, to give the initial impulse to the reconstruction move¬ 
ment. It was addressed by the governor in a speech 14 which, 
though alleged to be extemporaneous, gives every evidence of 
being most carefully prepared to measure up to a great occasion, 
of the momentous importance of which the author was fully 
aware. In any case, it is the ablest, most elaborate, and most 
impressive effort made by him during his entire term as gov¬ 
ernor, presenting a complete epitome of his political principles, 
motives, and projects, and indicating to the people the proper 
path to be followed for the redemption of the state. / 

He begins with a reiteration of his favorite theory that 
Tennessee has never been out of the Union. Its functions 
“have only been paralyzed—its powers are only remaining in¬ 
active.” The president, “in the exercise of his constitutional 
obligations, may appear in the state of Tennessee in the person 
of an agent” and restore to the people a republican form of 
government. Since the functions of the government are sus¬ 
pended, the president's agent “supplies the vacuum.” “Is there 
anything outside of the principles of the Constitution in that? 
Is there any usurpation in it? There must be a beginning 

“Nashville Union, January 2. 

14 Speech of Governor Andrew Johnson on the Restoration of State 
Government, pamphlet, Library of Congress. For the sake of clearness, 
I have slightly changed the order of sentences. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


ii5 

somewhere. In the absence of government there must be steps 
taken, though they may be irregular, for the purpose of bring¬ 
ing back order. ... In turning to the laws and Constitution of 
the state we find that when vacancies occur by death, resigna¬ 
tion, or otherwise, the executive shall make temporary appoint¬ 
ments, and these appointees shall hold their places until their 
successors are elected and qualified. Then we see how easy 
the process is. Begin at the foundation, elect the lower officers, 
and, step by step, put the government in motion. ... If it 
is done in a half dozen counties, it is so much done, and that 
much done we can do more.” 

Turning to the vexed question of the proper persons to 
participate in the active work of reconstruction, the governor 
prefaces his discussion with the assumption that every individual 
engaged in the rebellion “has been, by his own act, expatriated.” 
“Shall we lay down a rule which prohibits all restoration? . . . 
It is easy to talk that rebels shall not vote and Union men 
may, but it is difficult to practice this thing. ... We want 
some standard by which we can put him that has been a traitor 
to the test, though he has repented. . . . We are told upon 
pretty high authority that sinners sometimes repent; and we 
are told that in this repentance there should be works meet 
for repentance—there should be some evidence of it- ... I 
know it has been said by some Union men that we should not 
be placed in the attitude of culprits—of men asking for par¬ 
don. , . . But in the election of officers who are to take charge 
of the government we want some test, at least, that the men 
who vote are loyal and will act with Union men. ... We 
want a hard oath—a tight oath—as a qualification for every¬ 
body that votes. . . . On the other hand, if there is anybody 
in this large assembly of voters who needs or desires a pardon 
or amnesty, whether he seeks it in good faith or for the purpose 
of saving a little negro or any other property, I would say to 
him, ‘Go over there; there is an altar for you. There is Presi¬ 
dent Lincoln’s altar, if you want pardon or amnesty—if petition¬ 
ing to the president for executive clemency. If you want to es¬ 
cape the penalties you have incurred by violations of law and 
the Constitution, go over there and get your pardon. We are 


n 6 ANDREW JOHNSON 

not in need of it; we wish not to take that oath; that is the 
oath for him who has committed crime.’ ” 

After the local machinery in the counties shall have been 
put in operation, the governor continues, the people have to 
consider the best means for reestablishing the central govern¬ 
ment of the state. Here also he has no doubt as to the proper 
course. ‘‘To carry out the spirit and letter of the Constitution, 
as the people are the rightful source of political power, I 
should say the executive would have the right to invite the 
people to have a convention to restore government to the peo¬ 
ple. . . . We find in the constitution of this state that you 
can amend the constitution by the legislature, but it takes six 
years to amend it in that way. But when we recur to the bill 
of rights, which is a paramount part of our state constitution, 
we find that the sovereign people have the right to alter, amend, 
or abolish their form of government whenever they think proper, 
and in their own way. This is perfectly consonant to the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States, and admits the “great principle 
that all political power is inherent in the people. ... In other 
words, let us have the sovereign present in the shape of dele¬ 
gates. . . . Some that have been nominally Union men, and 
some that have been rebels . . . turn to the constitution as 
it now stands and say, let us get the legislafure back here; 
let us patch up things and have no fuss. They think of that 
little clause in our constitution which provides that the legis¬ 
lature shall not emancipate slaves without the consent of their 
owners. Don’t you see? Then if they get the legislature Back 
under the constitution as it is, they think they can hold on to 
the little remnant of negroes that is left—the disturbing element 
that has produced all this war. . . . Let us have the people 
here, and when they assemble in convention, when the sovereign 
is present, he can do all that the legislature can, and he can 
do a great deal more. . . . Let the people come forward and 
speak, and in speaking upon the negro question, my honest 
convictions are that they will settle it, and settle it finally. . . . 

“The rebels commenced the destruction of the government 
for the preservation of slavery, and the government is putting 
down the rebellion, and in the preservation of its own existence 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


ii 7 


has put slavery down, justly and rightfully, and upon correct 
principles. . . .1 have had some come to me and say, ‘Governor 
Johnson, are you in favor of immediate emancipation?’ I tell 
them yes. ‘Do you want to turn the negroes all loose upon 
the country ? What will we do with them ?’ Why, sir, I reply, 
as far as emancipation is concerned, that has already taken 
place. Where are your negroes? They answer, ‘They are run¬ 
ning about somewhere.’ I ask, what do you call that? They 
seem to be already turned loose. The institution of slavery 
is turned into a traveling institution, and goes just where it 
pleases. It is said that the negroes are not qualified to be free; 
because they have been slaves so long, they are unfitted to be 
freemen, and shall not be permitted to enjoy the privileges of 
freemen; but by way of making them competent, it is proposed 
to keep them in slavery nineteen or twenty years longer. In 
the first place, it would not do to have them free, because they 
have been slaves, and, in the next place, they should be kept in 
slavery to qualify them for freemen. ... In fact, negroes are 
emancipated in Tennessee to-day, and the only remaining ques¬ 
tion for us to settle, as prudent and wise men, is in assigning the 
negro his new relation.. Now, what will that be? . . . The 
negro will be thrown upon society, governed by the same laws 
that govern communities, and be compelled to fall back upon 
his own resources, as all other human beings are. . . . Political 
freedom means liberty to work, and at the same time enjoy 
the product of one’s labor. ... If he can rise by his own 
energies, in the name of God let him rise. In saying this, I do 
not argue that the negro race is equal to the Anglo-Saxon. . . . 
If the negro is better fitted for the inferior condition of society, 
the laws of nature will assign him there. ... If there are any 
here who have lived in the county of Davidson, you know 
many men have been afraid and alarmed even to speak upon 
the negro question when the large slave-holders were about. 
Some of you have been deprived of your manhood so long 
upon this question, that when you begin to talk about it now, 
you look around to see if you are not overheard by some of 
your old masters. . . . 

“There are men owning slaves themselves that will be emanci- 


n8 ANDREW JOHNSON 

pated by this operation. It is not my devotion to the black 
man alone, but a greater devotion to the white men and the 
amelioration of their condition. ... If you cut up these large 
cotton farms into small-sized farms, each man with his little 
family getting hold of part of it, on good land will raise his 
own hogs, his own sheep, beef-cattle, his own grain, and a 
few bales of cotton, better handled and a much better article 
than we have ever had heretofore. With a greater number of 
individuals, each making a few bales, we will have more bales 
than ever were made before.” 

The meeting, completely in the hands of the governor, passed 
resolutions in full accord with his desires and requested him to 
call a constitutional convention whenever, in his judgment, the 
state might be represented from all its parts. Declaring that the 
rebellion had laid waste the state, prostrated its civil institutions, 
and brought death, anarchy, crime, and ruin upon the people, 
and that slavery was the cause of all this evil, “an unmitigated 
evil in itself,” and already “dead by the acts of its own friends,” 
it pledged itself to labor for the election of delegates to the 
convention who favored “immediate and universal emancipation 
now and forever.” 15 Messages from other parts of the state 
reached Johnson, praising his speech and the sentiment of the 
meeting and urging him to act promptly in accord with his 
opinions. 

Thus encouraged, the governor proceeded to inaugurate the 
process he had outlined. On the 26th of January, he issued a 
proclamation 16 for an election on the first Saturday in March 
for county officers—justices of the peace, sheriffs, constables, 
trustees, circuit and county court clerks, registers and tax- 
collectors. Inasmuch as this election is to be held in a state 
of the Union under the Federal Constitution, the proclamation 
asserts, “it is not expected that the enemies of the United States 
will propose to vote, nor is it intended that they be permitted to 
vote, or hold office.” 17 Therefore, to be entitled to the franchise, 

M Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. viii, doc. 358. 

18 Ibid., doc. 340; J. P., vol. xxxix, 8655. 

17 ‘‘Thus to invoke the Constitution was like Satan quoting Scripture.” 
Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol ii, 
p. 287. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


119 

the would-be voter must, besides satisfying the requirements of 
the constitution and laws of the state in force previous to the 
act of secession, subscribe to the following stringent oath: 
“I solemnly swear that I will henceforth support the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States and defend it against the assaults 
of all its enemies; that I will henceforth be and conduct my¬ 
self as a true and faithful citizen of the United States, freely 
and voluntarily claiming to be subject to all the duties and 
obligations, and entitled to all the rights and privileges of 
such citizenship; that I ardently desire the suppression of the 
present insurrection and rebellion against the government of 
the United States, the success of its armies and the defeat 
of all those who oppose them, and that the Constitution of the 
United States, and all laws and proclamations made in pur¬ 
suance thereof, may be speedily and permanently established 
and enforced over all the people, states, and territories thereof; 
and further, that I will hereafter aid and assist all loyal people 
in the accomplishment of all these results. So help me God.” 18 

All judges and officers holding the elections were to take still 
another oath 19 to permit none to vote who had not satisfied 
the requirements of the proclamation. The elections were to 
be conducted under the code of Tennessee, which provided 
that the inspectors and judges of elections should be appointed 
by the county court. If the court did not or could not perform 
that duty, it might be done by the sheriff, with the advice of 
three justices of the peace; or, failing them, by any justice of 
the peace; or, failing him, by any three freeholders. Since, 
in many counties, no loyal county officers existed, the governor 
affirmed that he would designate citizens to appoint the inspectors 
and judges in those counties. 

The exaction of such an oath served notice on the former 
secessionists that only by a complete change of heart or by 
false swearing could they obtain a voice in the counsels of 
the government. Assurances of future loyalty and acquiescence 
in the accomplished results of the war—the only conditions in 
Lincoln’s wise and generous offer—were now by no means 

18 Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. viii, doc. 340 ; J- P-, vol. xxxix, 8655. 

" Ibid. 


120 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


enough. The restored citizen must “ardently desire” and ac¬ 
tually assist in the suppression of his former secessionist kins¬ 
men and friends and the reestablishment over them of the Con¬ 
stitution and laws they hated, against which they had taken 
arms, and for the overthrow of which they were still contending. 
In February, Maynard, the attorney-general, threw another 
bomb among the amnestied disloyalists by deciding that since 
citizenship, forfeited by rebellion, could be regained only by 
subscribing to the amnesty oath, and the state constitution, under 
which the election was to be held, restricted the ballot to those 
who had been citizens for six months, no person who had 
ever been guilty of a disloyal act could vote until six months 
after taking the oath. 20 

Subjected to these tests, the ardor for reconstruction cooled. 
To many judicious Union men it seemed that Johnson was 
going too far and, by unnecessary severity, was defeating his 
own purpose. The president was besieged with protests against 
the new oath, but his confidence in Johnson’s ability and under¬ 
standing of the peculiar conditions to be dealt with in Ten¬ 
nessee decided him, as always, to allow the governor loose 
rein. He must, Lincoln told Maynard, who had expressed to 
him apprehensions, be permitted to proceed in accordance with 
his own judgment, but he need not be expected to deviate to 
any ruinous extent from the president’s plan, and a hasty 
perusal of his program had revealed no such deviation. 21 
Ruinous the deviation, as it proved, was not; but that it was 
a deviation of the most radical character, the president could 
hardly have pretended to deny. Obviously, however, those who 
had hoped that a mortifying rebuke and the overruling of his 
arbitrary action were in store for Johnson were to be disappointed. 
To an inquiry as to whether the election officers could dispense 
with the governor’s oath and administer only the amnesty oath 
to voters, 22 Lincoln replied: “In county elections you had better 
stand by Governor Johnson’s plan; otherwise you will have 
conflict and confusion.” 23 In a later and more detailed commu- 

39 Nashville, Dispatch, February 12. 

21 Nicholay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. viii, p. 444. 

22 J. P., vol. xl, 8894; Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 763. 

28 J. P., vol. xl, 8893. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


121 


nication to Secretary East, he declared that no conflict existed 
between the two oaths, and that no person who had taken one 
to secure a pardon should object to taking the other as a test 
of loyalty. “I have seen and examined Governor Johnson’s 
proclamation,” he said, “and am entirely satisfied with his plan; 
which is to restore the state government and place it under 
the control of citizens truly loyal to the government of the 
United States.” 24 

If Lincoln was not disposed to place obstacles in the gov¬ 
ernor’s way, the people of Tennessee were. His overbearing 
egotism, inability to conciliate, and determination to carry out his 
own ideas without variation or concession aroused against him 
a powerful, resolute opposition, which drew support from many 
sources. Many who were diplomatically silent in public, worked 
secretly to undermine him and destroy his influence. A call 
was circulated in Memphis (February) for a meeting of con¬ 
servative Unionists, at which it was planned formally to condemn 
the oath as exceeding the governor’s authority and out of har¬ 
mony with the president’s policy, but the Johnson party suspected 
its purpose, attended in a body, and succeeded in substituting 
resolutions indorsing his course. 25 Others, who shrank from 
actually denouncing the oath, busied themselves with devices 
for getting around it. A favorite line of reasoning was that 
the governor had no right to prescribe any oath to the people; 
therefore the whole proceeding was void, and a person might 
take the oath, which had no legal sanction, without actually 
swearing at all. The Nashville Press, which had once warmly 
supported Johnson, but had become disgusted and alienated by 
his arbitrary methods, advocated this subterfuge. “If this course 
of reasoning should be generally adopted and acted out,” it 
commented cynically, “we don’t see how the governor can manage 
to checkmate the move. He may construct a new or additional 
oa th—he may even require folks to swear that they love him 
for his candor and humanity and disinterested patriotism, and 
‘ardently desire’ that he shall be perpetual dictator of Ten¬ 
nessee—they can still take it in the same sense they offer to 

M Ibid, vol. xli, 8956; O. R., series iii, vol. iv, p. 141. 

*J. P., vol. xl, 8847. 


122 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


the other—the sense of void nothingless.” 26 Even the Confederate 
cavalry leader, Richardson, advised his friends to “take any 
oath that the Federals may prescribe, but to see to it and 
control the election at all hazards/’ 27 That these suggestions 
were largely followed was the conviction of the Nashville Union, 
which, during the following summer, alleged that hundreds who 
had taken both oaths were clandestinely corresponding with men 
in the Confederate army and sending them information and sup¬ 
plies. 28 Similar arguments were brought to bear to induce the 
Union soldiers to desert, on the ground that their enlistments 
were no longer binding, since the war was now carried on not 
for the Union, as they had been told, but for the emancipation 
of the slaves. 29 

More irregularities followed in various parts of the state. 
In fact, the sole animating purpose of the administration party 
seemed to be to prevent, by hook or crook, the election scheduled 
for the 5th of March from degenerating into a humiliating fiasco. 
For example, a rally was held in Nashville on the 3d, to ratify 
nominations for county officers made by certain “unconditional 
Union men” the previous evening. This done, the meeting, by 
what authority does not appear, appointed a committee to ascer¬ 
tain who were entitled to vote at the coming election and to 
“instruct the judges accordingly.” The committee reported that 
quartermasters and their clerks and all soldiers and government 
employees who had been residents of the county for six months 
were voters according to the provisions of the constitution, en¬ 
tirely ignoring a decision of the supreme court of the state 
which construed the six months requirement to mean a fixed, 
permanent residence extending over that period. The Union 
pertinently asked: “Did ever a vigilance committee assume more 
authority than this meeting?” 30 It is safe to assume that the 
situation in other parts of the state was, to say the least, no 
better than at Nashville. 

** Nashville Press, February 28, 1864. 

27 J. P., vol. xl, 8847. 

“Nashville Union, August 14 

38 Ibid. 

* Ibid., March 3. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


123 


Under such conditions, the election of the 5th could only be 
“a serious farce.” 31 The total vote was perhaps between forty 
and fifty thousand. Accuracy is impossible, because the officers 
of some counties simply forwarded certificates of election, with¬ 
out giving the number of votes cast. The omission is unim¬ 
portant, however, for, considering the character of the electorate, 
precise results have no significance. In some districts, no polls 
were opened at all. 32 Four days before the election, Colonel 
J. B. Dorr reported that he could not find a citizen of Humphries 
county with manhood enough to accept an appointment to hold 
an election there. 33 In Shelby county, the scandal was so great 
that the governor felt compelled to declare the election void for 
most of the offices and order another on the 16th of June. 34 
Many Union citizens throughout the state refused to vote, on 
the ground that the proceedings were fully as irregular as those 
of the secessionists in 1861, and that they would not “compliment 
the devil by adopting his programme.” 36 The ultra-loyalists of 
East Tennessee withheld their support, insisting that they should 
not be required to take any kind of oath. The tendency of 
the soldiers was to vote in cliques, under manipulation. It was 
estimated that, had the amnesty oath been the only test, the 
vote would have been nearly doubled. 36 The practical result of 
the election was to provide officers for about two-thirds of the 
counties of the state, but the whole affair brought no credit to 
its instigators and placed the government in a weak and equivocal 
position before the people. 37 Johnson himself suffered particularly 
in his personal prestige. The Memphis Argus asserted that the 
failure of reconstruction in Tennessee was chargeable not to the 
people, but to the governor and his radical adherents, who de¬ 
manded an exact compliance “with their own ideas and isms.” 
The Argus urged the people to disregard Johnson and take up 
the work themselves. As long as they allowed him to have 

31 Ibid. 

82 Ibid., March 8. 

33 Ibid., March 23. 

34 J. P., vol. xli, 8986. 

“Nashville Union, March 10. 

34 Ibid., March 8. 

37 Ibid., March 11, March 23; Knoxville Whig, March 12. 


124 ANDREW JOHNSON 

his own way, so long would he “thwart every effort at reorganiza¬ 
tion which did not originate with him/’ 38 

The storm of abuse to which he was subjected only steeled 
Johnson’s resolution. His dispatches to Lincoln express neither 
disappointment nor uncertainty; on the contrary, he asserts his 
determination to carry on the work of restoration exactly in 
accordance with the plan already outlined by him—forcing a 
convention and immediate emancipation, if necessary, down the 
very throats of the protesting conservatives. His organ, the 
Times, denounced his opponents who were pressing for speedy 
reconstruction by a legislature as aiming, while posing as cham¬ 
pions of constitutionality, to save slavery by avoiding a con¬ 
vention of the people; the governor, on the other hand, was 
intent on applying directly to the people to kill and bury the 
institution, which he maintained they would surely do. “There 
is but one rope left unsevered which fastens Tennessee to-day to 
the pirate-ship of rebellion. That rope is slavery, and it must 
be cut instantly.” 39 

The serious discord which had developed in East Tennessee 
during the March elections impelled Johnson to concentrate his 
efforts upon that stronghold of Union sentiment, for the purpose 
of lining up a solid loyal party in support of his policy. The 
district was again in the extremities of distress. The armies 
of Buckner, Burnside, Longstreet, and Sherman had lived off 
it during the preceding fall and winter, and the little they had 
left had been gobbled up by Morgan and Wheeler. Considerably 
more than half the loyal voting population had either fled north 
or was in the Union army. It was estimated that less than 
five per cent, of the usual breadth of wheat could be sown in 
the spring of 1864. Fences were down, barns destroyed, the live 
stock had largely disappeared. Contributions from the North 
were inadequate to meet the necessities of the people. Under 
stress of three years of suffering and neighbor-warfare, a feeling 
of fierce hatred had sprung up between loyalists and secessionists, 
which had no counterpart in 1861. The old Union leaders, whose 
conciliatory spirit had colored the resolutions of the Greenville 

38 Quoted ,by Nashville Union, April 6. 

39 Nashville Times and Union, March 24, April 26. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


125 


convention, had now to deal with a party of relentlessly vindictive 
young men—Union soldiers, partisan fighters, and refugees—who 
had felt the mercilessness of the war in their persons, their 
families, and their property, and were determined that their 
enemies should have their full meed of retribution. This party 
naturally attached itself to Johnson and took its stand upon the 
principle—no concessions to traitors. 

It will be remembered that the Greenville convention, on 
its adjournment in May, 1861, had authorized its president to 
reassemble it whenever conditions required further action. John¬ 
son had thus a machine ready at hand to inaugurate his project 
and affording him the opportunity—grateful, doubtless, in view 
of the hostility which his recent measures had engendered— 
to remain at first in the background, to watch its workings, 
and to intrude himself only in case friction developed. Accord¬ 
ingly, at his suggestion, 40 the president, T. A. R. Nelson, assembled 
the convention at Knoxville on the 12th of April. 

Hardly had its deliberations begun, when it gave unmistakable 
evidences that it was no suitable vehicle for the governor’s 
purposes. Its old leaders still adhered to the conservative prin¬ 
ciples which had always animated them, and, since they were 
the convention officers, they were able to constitute com¬ 
mittees in sympathy with themselves. The radical interest was, 
however, strong among the members, despite the fact that many 
former delegates who favored that party were absent on service 
w’th the army. The committee on resolutions, made up with a 
conservative majority, could not agree upon a report, and finally 
presented two, the majority favoring compromise with the South 
along the lines of the Crittenden proposition, the minority sup¬ 
porting Johnson’s plan, including emancipation. Neither of these 
carried the convention. A movement to detach East Tennessee 
as a separate state showed some vitality for a time, but suddenly 
collapsed before the determined opposition of the governor him¬ 
self. The debate became acrimonious and, as no accommodation 
could be reached and every hour increased the bitterness of the 
contestants, an adjournment without further action was agreed 
to on the 15th, to preserve any remaining shreds of harmony. 

w Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee, p. 408. 


126 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


That the motion to adjourn obtained almost a two-thirds vote and 
was the only important proposition that did not arouse hostility 
is proof enough that the conservatives were anxious only to 
avoid committing themselves to anything. 41 

But the Johnson party, disappointed in their hope that the 
convention would surrender to their views, had no notion of 
contenting themselves with a drawn battle. The day after the 
adjournment, they held a mass meeting of their own, 42 on the 
pretence that the officers of the convention had prevented a fair 
expression of opinion by manipulating the committees. Oliver 
P. Temple, an active participant in the proceedings of this 
meeting, gives a highly interesting account 43 of the secret in¬ 
fluences which really determined its action. Resolutions un¬ 
qualifiedly indorsing the program and principles of the governor, 
as embodied in his speech and the resolutions of the 21st of 
January, were drawn up in advance by Johnson himself, and 
Brownlow was requested to offer them as his own. The latter, 
though willing to do so, was incapacitated from reading them 
to the meeting by the partial loss of his voice, and he suggested 
Temple for that office. Johnson at once grasped at this proposal. 
By connecting the names of two Whig leaders with his plan, 
he would, he said, gain the friends of both, who together con¬ 
stituted a majority of the loyalists. Temple accordingly pre¬ 
sented the resolutions as Brownlow’s, and Johnson referred to 
them approvingly in his subsequent speech, as if he had never 
before heard of them and was highly gratified by an unsought 
and unexpected tribute to himself. As such, they passed the 
meeting. Johnson had emerged with the least possible discredit 
from a very bad situation. 

Another illusive hope was held out to the tottering Unionists 
by the approach of the National Union convention at Baltimore 
for the nomination of a presidential candidate. The participation 
of the Tennessee delegates in the proceedings would impart a 
certain dignity to the party in the state, which would thus be 
recognized as readmitted, for party purposes at least, to its ante- 

43 Nashville Times and Union, April i6;Nashville Union, April 17, 19, 30. 

43 Nashville Times and Union, April 27. 

"Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee, p. 408. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


127 


bellum privileges. With this aim, the permanent executive com¬ 
mittee published, on the 3d of May, a call to unconditional 
Union men to meet in the respective divisions of the state on 
the 30th, to elect the delegates. Expressing their confidence that, 
by the time of the November election, the people would be able 
to vote in peace and security, they explained the interest of 
Tennessee in the Baltimore convention and asserted her right 
to be represented. Tennessee being entitled to ten delegates, 
they suggested that East Tennessee send four, and the other 
two divisions three each. 44 

Regularity in choosing the delegates was clearly not to be 
expected. Even with the best of intentions, the authorities could 
do little, and they were disinclined to go to any unnecessary 
trouble. The easiest way was best, when any way was illegal. 
An unsigned notice, dated May 26, published in the Nashville 
papers, convoked the loyal citizens of Middle Tennessee on the 
27th “to consult as to who shall represent them in the 
Baltimore convention.” This meeting, harking back, doubtless, 
to the convenient generality of popular sovereignty, voted that the 
citizens of the state, in mass convention at the state-house on 
the 30th, should elect delegates for the state at large, and, on 
the same day, the citizens of Middle Tennessee, at the same 
place, should appoint the delegates for that section. 45 

The newspaper accounts of the proceedings on the 30th 46 are 
so confused that it is impossible to get at exactly what was done. 
The meeting at Nashville, which was attended by delegates 
chosen by gatherings of “unconditional Union men” from other 
counties of the district, as well as by citizens of Nashville, elected 
two delegates at large—one from East and one from Middle 
Tennessee—and the three delegates of Middle Tennessee. It 
also drew up resolutions similar to those of January 21 and 
April 12, declaring for a constitutional convention to be called 
by Governor Johnson, when the state could be fully represented, 
favoring immediate emancipation, and asserting that “the gov¬ 
ernment of the United States and the governments of the states 

“Nashville Union, May 3; Nashville Times and Union , M'ay 26. 

48 Nashville Union, May 29. 

46 Ibid., June 1; Nashville Times and Union, May 31. 


128 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


erected under the Constitution thereof are the governments of 
the free white man, to be controlled and administered by him, 
and the negro must assume that status to which the laws of an 
enlightened, moral and high-toned civilization shall assign him.” 
The administration and war policy of the president were en¬ 
dorsed and his renomination recommended. Governor Johnson, 
who, “by his unflinching courage and patriotism” had “endeared 
himself to all American patriots, and by his long public services, 
especially by the administration of affairs” during his term as 
military governor, had “gained the entire confidence of all the 
loyal people of Tennessee,” was named for the vice-presidency. 
In East Tennessee, two separate meetings seem to have been held, 
one at Chattanooga and one at Knoxville, at each of which two 
of the four delegates alloted to that section were chosen. 47 The 
West Tennessee convention was called together by the executive 
committee of that section and the delegates of four counties, 
chosen at mass meetings, were admitted to seats. Shelby county 
was allowed ten votes and the other three counties five each, 
and the three delegates to the Baltimore convention were elected 
on that basis. 48 Both the East and West Tennessee meetings 
declared for Lincoln and Johnson as the party nominees. 

The hopes of the Unionists were realized when the Baltimore 
convention admitted the Tennesseeans. To do so was to indorse 
the Johnson doctrine that the state had not, because of the 
action of a majority of her people, lost her place in the Union, 
but all the old rights and privileges still appertained to her 
loyal citizens, who now constituted the state. This view was 
put forcibly before the convention by “Parson” Brownlow. His 
picturesque personality and romantic history had won him an 
enthusiastic invitation to address the meeting, and he took ad¬ 
vantage of this opportunity to protest against the rejection of 
the Tennessee delegates. “I hope you will pause, gentlemen,” 
he said, “before you commit so rash an act as that, and thereby 
recognize secession. We don’t recognize it in Tennessee. We 
deny that we are out. We deny that we ever have been out. 
We maintain the minority first voted us out, and then a majority 

47 Nashville Union, June 4. 

** Memphis Bulletin, May 31. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


129 


whipped the minority out of the state with bayonets and drove 
over a portion of our men to their ranks.” 49 The principle was 
affirmed beyond doubt or question when the convention nominated 
Governor Johnson for the vice-presidency. Only a citizen of 
a state could hold that office, and the selection of Johnson 
placed the party stamp of disapproval on the contention of 
Sumner that “a state pretending to secede from the Union” 
must be regarded as a rebel state subject to military occupation 
until readmitted to the Union by the vote of both houses of 
Congress. 50 

The summer months of 1864 provide a hiatus in the history 
of reconstruction in Tennessee. The results of the efforts in 
that direction had tended to discourage Union men and shake 
their confidence in their ability to carry the state with them. 
While some blamed the narrow policy of Johnson, others insisted 
that rigor was the only possible remedy for the situation; that 
the fact was, the bulk of the people were hostile to the Union 
and determined to remain so, despite threats or blandishments. 
The amnesty proclamation, it was felt, had done little good. Its 
principles were admitted to be excellent, but correct principles 
were naturally not comprehensible to rebels. By many it was 
regarded as an indication of timidity on the part of the presi¬ 
dent, a disposition to trim to the wind. The Nashville Press 
declared that Lincoln knew when he issued it that the Supreme 
Court was bound to nullify the laws and proclamations to which 
it referred, and that therefore, in offering secessionists amnesty 
upon conditions which had no legal validity, he was, in fact, 
proposing to receive them back unconditionally. On this ground, 
it urged everybody to take and abide by the oath, which bound 
them to nothing to which they could possibly object; then “the 
Johnsonians” would “have no means of ultimately preventing 
the recognition of the state upon a constitutional basis except 
that of direct and open military coercion. 51 So generally was 
this advice adopted that, the Times alleged, the session of the 

49 Ibid., June 11. 

60 Ibid. 

01 Nashville Times and Union, May 26. 


130 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Federal court in Nashville was made a mockery by former 
leaders of the rebellion, who presented themselves and obtained 
free pardons by taking the oath. “Till the rebellion shall be 
fully put down, its armies effectually destroyed, and its leaders 
tried and punished for treason, the policy of making citizens 
out of rebels will be pernicious to the government.” 52 Aggravated 
by repeated evidences of the persistent and contemptuous dis¬ 
loyalty of men who complied with the formalities prescribed by 
the government in order to receive trading privileges, protection, 
and other advantages at its hands, while taking no part in any 
open Union movement, remaining away from the polls, and 
continuing unregenerate at heart, the unconditional Unionists; 
both within and without the state, used every means to force the 
administration to abandon lenity for coercion. A petition of 
“Many Many very Many voters of Upper Tennessee” de¬ 
manded that the regiments engaged in protecting rebel property in 
Middle Tennessee be sent back to restore order and security at 
home. If this was not done, they said, Johnson’s vote in No¬ 
vember would suffer, and the fact that he had deserted his old 
neighbors in their distress would be published to the country. 53 
J. B. Bingham wrote from Memphis that no more elections 
should be held in the state until military commanders could be 
had who would not show more favor to rebels than to uncon¬ 
ditional Union men. 54 From distant New York, Eli Thayer 
importuned Johnson to confiscate the lands of rebels and fill 
them with loyal settlers, thus enabling the state to dispense 
with a standing army after the war. He believed that Lincoln, 
by opposing confiscation, had prolonged the war eighteen months 
and cost the country a million men and many millions of dollars. 
A blow at the landed property of the rebels would kill slavery, 
the root of the rebellion, and, if the plantations were divided 
among the rank and file of the Confederate army, they would 
take the oath of allegiance and have a permanent incentive to 
keep it in good faith. “It is not enough to offer them starva¬ 
tion, as Lincoln does in his miserable amnesty proclamation,” 

"Ibid. 

53 J. P-, vol xliv, 9532. 

04 Ibid., vol xlii, 9249. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


131 

he said. “They went into the rebel service to escape that, and it is 
folly to expect they will come out to secure it.” 55 Johnson him¬ 
self wrote to Lincoln in May that he was satisfied the amnesty 
would be seriously detrimental in reorganizing the state govern¬ 
ment, and asked that Tennessee be excepted from it. All possible 
benefit to be derived from it, so far as the army was concerned, 
had been already gained. It would be far better if, for the 
future, each Tennesseean desiring pardon should be required to 
apply directly to the president. He would thus be impressed 
with his personal obligation to the government. “As it now 
operates, its main tendency is to keep alive the rebel spirit, 
in fact reconciling none. This is the opinion of every real Union 
man here.” 56 

While the movement for a convention was permitted, for the 
time, to hang fire, the governor busied himself with the long 
delayed task of restoring the courts. In May, Judge Trigg 
opened the United States circuit court for the district of East 
Tennessee at Knoxville. 57 A chancellor, judge, and attorney- 
general for the fourth judicial district of the state were appointed 
in June; 58 and, the same month, Judge Brien issued notice that 
the circuit court of the 9th district would sit in Williamson 
county in July and in Davidson county in September. 59 The 
county court of Marion county was organized early in July, 
though Johnson was warned that its chairman and another mem¬ 
ber were rebel sympathizers, elected by rebels in expectation 
of protection and favors in return, and that not a single lawyer 
practicing in the court was certainly a loyal man. 60 In July, 
the chancellors, judges, and district attorneys for the 3d, 4th, 
6th, and 9th districts received their commissions. 61 

Particularly interesting was the condition of the judiciary 
at Memphis. That city had been virtually under military rule 
since its capture in June, 1862, although the city government, 

56 Ibid., vol xliii, 9438, 9440. 

50 Ibid., 9372. 

57 Nashville Union, May 26. 

“Nashville Times and Union, June 27. 

“Nashville Union, June 30. 

m J. P., vol. xlv, 9968. 

61 Nashville Times and Union, July 28. 


132 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


including the police court, was allowed to exist by suffrance 
of the commanding general. This officer regulated the trade 
and communication with the surrounding country and controlled 
the rental of real estate belonging to secessionists. By his 
orders, provost-marshals, with their guard, maintained order 
and supervised the city police force. 62 In October, a military 
commission was constituted to deal with offences against the 
laws of war not cognizable by court-martial, 63 and in January, 
1863, another commission was organized to try all criminal 
cases laid before it by department, district, or post commanders, 
the provost-marshal general, or district provost-marshals, and 
empowered to punish by fine, imprisonment, or transportation 
beyond the lines. Its decisions were subject to review by the 
department commander. 64 Similar provisions for the handling 
of civil cases were not introduced at that time, perhaps on 
account of the argument frequently advanced that there was a 
manifest hardship in allowing a loyalist in New York to collect 
his debt from a loyalist in Memphis, while the latter was estopped 
by force of circumstances from recovering from a loyalist in 
Mississippi. 65 

In April, 1863, however, General Veatch, commander of the 
post, appointed a civil commission of three citizens, “to hear 
and determine all complaints and suits instituted by loyal citizens 
of the United States for the collection of debts, the enforce¬ 
ment of contracts, the prevention of frauds, the recovery of the 
possession of property, real or personal, and generally to perform 
such duties and exercise such powers as can be done by a 
court deriving its powers from military authority. V66 This 
commission continued throughout the war and offered to the 
citizens of Memphis their sole opportunity to enjoy the ad¬ 
vantages of the civil law. It became the object of violent 
attack and equally ardent defence by the opposing factions. On 
the one hand, it was contended that two of the three com- 

82 Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial Law, pp. 143-147. 

w O. R., series i, vol. xvii, part ii, p. 294. 

** Ibid., vol. xxiv, part iii, p. 1067. 

*J. P., vol. xxix, 6459. 

** Ibid., vol. xxxiv, 7447. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


133 


missioners were not residents of the state and directed their 
attention to perquisites and personal advancement, regardless 
of the interests of the citizens; that the assessment of costs 
was exorbitant and the people were systematically robbed. J. M. 
Tomeny, a prominent radical Unionist, stated that in one typical 
case, involving $38, the costs amounted to $40, and the net 
profits of the commissioners from the fees collected during the 
first three months of the session totalled $4500. The decisions 
were said to be so vacillating, so inconsistent with established 
precedents, that the commission had fallen into contempt with the 
ablest members of the bar. No appeals were allowed and no 
plea to the jurisdiction, and the stay laws of the state were 
not regarded. Personal property was levied upon and sold in 
three days after execution issued. Though the commission had 
no authority to sell real estate, rents and profits were subject 
to sequestration at its order. 67 J. B. Bingham charged that one 
of the commissioners was courting rebel sympathizers with a 
view to settling in Memphis as a “copperhead lawyer” and had 
nearly driven every Union lawyer out of court. As a remedy, 
the commission was declared to be worse than the disease it was 
intended to cure. 68 

On the other hand, it was alleged that the commission 
answered all the requirements of the people and possessed their 
confidence, that a change was inadvisable under existing con¬ 
ditions and was advocated only by office seekers and interested 
politicians. 69 There seems to have been something in this claim; 
but a body of this sort was naturally not under the same salu¬ 
tary restraints as a regular court, and its champions entirely 
overshot the mark when they went on to say that Governor 
Johnson had no authority to establish courts in Tennessee at 
all, since the constitution and laws of neither the United States 
nor the state conferred such power on the governor, and it 
could exist only as a war power, to be exercised by the officer 
having the paramount military command in the city. 70 The 

" Ibid. 

m Ibid., vol. xlv, 9833. 

•® Ibid., 9908; Memphis Argus quoted by Nashville Times and Union, 
July 21. 

1# J. P., vol. xlv, 9908. 


134 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


obvious reply was that any war power belonging to the presi¬ 
dent as commander-in-chief of the army and navy could be 
delegated by him to any agent he might select; and that Johnson 
was not a civil governor at all, but Lincoln’s military agent, 
of military rank and detailed expressly to perform, among 
other tasks, the special work of restoring the courts. 

This work, not only for Memphis, but for the greater part of the 
state, could, however, proceed but slowly. As the autumn of 1864 
came on, the disorder increased. The Confederate cavalry took 
advantage of Sherman’s descent upon Georgia to spread havoc 
in his rear and to harrass almost to distraction the Union forces 
remaining in Tennessee. On the 24th of August, Forrest made 
his famous dash into Memphis, nearly capturing Generals 
Hurlbut and Washburn. Wheeler terrorized East and Middle 
Tennessee, penetrated almost to Nashville, and cut the railroad 
between that city and Murfreesboro. The brilliant and rapid 
strokes of the partisan leaders utterly bewildered the Federal 
commanders and, when they failed to check the raiders, judges 
and sheriffs had little prospect of enforcing the law. Mean¬ 
while Thomas, from Sherman’s army, did not cease to press 
Johnson to get the courts speedily into full operation throughout 
the state. This, he explained, would enable him to dissolve the 
military commission which assessed damages upon rebel sym¬ 
pathizers for the acts of the guerillas in their neighborhood, 
and would offer the loyal citizens a legal remedy through the 
regular tribunals. 71 The unintentional irony of such a suggestion 
must have struck the governor, but he answered in excellent 
spirit, recognizing the desirability of carrying out Thomas’ 
recommendation, assuring him that the work was being pushed 
as rapidly as possible, and indicating the difficulties in the way. 72 

West Tennessee regained its equilibrium more quickly than 
the rest of the state. Forrest was compelled to draw off east¬ 
ward, and, in October, the civil commission finally went out 
of business and the criminal, common law and chancery courts 
convened. 73 But the bickerings were not quieted. The pro- 

71 Ibid., vol. xlix,—701. 

72 Ibid.,—738. 

u Miller’s Manual of Tennessee, pp. 179-187. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


135 


ceedings of the courts promptly fell foul of General Dana’s 
orders regarding the militia. The judges complained to John¬ 
son that the business of the court took all the time of the court 
officers, but the general had commanded that all, not exempt 
from militia service, who failed to perform it, be arrested, fined 
and imprisoned, and had told them that if militia duty conflicted 
with civil duty, the courts must “bust up.” 74 This, they assumed, 
applied not only to judges, clerks, and other court officers, but 
also to jurymen and witnesses. Judge Smith, of the common 
law and chancery court, wrote in December that no quarterly 
term could be held in January, because Dana refused to grant 
passes to the justices outside the lines to come in, on the 
ground that he did not believe loyal justices could live outside 
the lines. 75 Dana’s reply to Johnson’s protest gives the whole 
affair the aspect of a tempest in a tea-pot. His only purpose, 
he said, was to have the enrollment of the militia complete and 
every man assigned to his place in case of attack. After this 
was done, the judge and other indispensable officers of the court 
would be excused from active duty. “No effort will be spared 
on my part,” he assured Johnson, “to cooperate with you in 
your work of reorganizing the loyal element.” 76 Warm letters 
in defence of Dana asserted that he was laboring “with an eye 
single to the promotion of his country’s cause” and that, be¬ 
cause he dared to “face the corruptions of the commercial 
combinations” in Memphis, he was denounced by men inspired 
by motives “less patriotic than mercenary.” 77 Bingham and his 
friends, who were acting as the mouthpiece of the governor 
and dispensing political favors in Memphis, had, it was declared, 
neither the respect nor the confidence of the community, and 
Johnson was making a mistake in allying himself with them. 78 

At the other extremity of the state, dissatisfaction was equally 
great. Brownlow wrote, in November, that the Federal court 
at Knoxville was “a complete farce,” the worst rebels and 

74 J. P„ vol. liv,—1670. 

76 Ibid.,—1710. 

74 Ibid.,—1816. 

7 Mbid., vol. lvi,—2106. 

78 Ibid., vol. li,—1021; vol. lvi,—2106. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


136 

traitors against whom indictments were found escaping with 
only the payment of costs on taking the amnesty oath. 79 Con¬ 
sidering, however, the obstacles he had had to surmount, John¬ 
son had reason to be gratified at the progress made. By the 
end of 1864, the circuit courts were open in the 4th, 6th, 
8th, 9th, and 15th circuits, besides the criminal courts 
of Davidson and Shelby counties. The 1st and 2d circuits 
followed in January, 1865, an d the others were not far behind. 80 

In tracing the restoration of the courts to a conclusion, it has 
been necessary to defer the account of a serious reverse sus¬ 
tained by the administration in July, 1864, in the subversion 
of the city government of Memphis. 81 From the outbreak of 
the war, the metropolis of West Tennessee had been the dis¬ 
affected core of the most disaffected region of the state. Its 
importance as a commercial entrepot—particularly for the cotton 
trade—and its strategic situation on the Mississippi river and 
the great railroad arteries of the Confederacy had made it the 
constant centre of military operations and had caused it to be con¬ 
trolled primarily in the interests of the army. The details of 
local administration, however, were left in the hands of an elected 
government. Throughout the war, John Park had served unin¬ 
terruptedly as mayor. During the agitation in 1861, he had 
embraced the extreme secession view and vehemently denounced 
the Union; but he had acquiesced in the occupation of Memphis 
by the Federal army, had taken the oath of allegiance, and had 
been allowed to hold his office. The unconditional Unionists 
never ceased to shower denunciation on him and his board of 
aldermen as traitors at heart, ready to betray the government 
at the first opportunity. It was charged that they had obtained 
their places by fraud at the last election, when six hundred 
votes were polled in wards containing only three hundred voters 
and men openly admitted having voted four times in each ward 
in the city; that they used their right of appointing the judges 
of election to name those who would look after their interests; 
that they represented the result as an anti-administration 

79 Ibid., vol. liii,—1463. 

80 Miller’s Manual of Tennessee, pp. 182-184. 

91 J. P., vol. xxxvi, 7897; vol. xlii, 9249. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


137 


triumph, although they had made no such issue in the cam- 
paign. Bingham averred that General Hurlbut had resolved to 
set the election aside altogether, but finally agreed with the 
Union leaders that such a proceeding would appear to be a 
backward step in the attempted progress toward civil govern¬ 
ment, and would be misrepresented at Washington. 

While the strictures of the radical malcontents must be taken 
with grave suspicion, it is certain that the Memphis government 
was not according an enthusiastic support to the Union cause, and 
was particularly at odds with the emancipation policy. In 
October, 1863, the aldermen passed and the mayor approved a 
set of ordinances for the regulation of the negroes in the city, 
which contained certain rigorous provisions, including punish¬ 
ment by whipping. These “black laws,” so called, became the 
most formidable weapon of attack upon their framers. Also, the 
cry of fraud was kept up, and that of corruption in office was 
added. The Park party was said to control the entire Irish 
element and to entertain high hopes of success at the ensuing 
June elections. In apprehension of this, Bingham urged Johnson 
to prevent the election and fill the offices by appointment. 

If the undeniably loyal administration men had been able to 
act in harmony, they would have had a fighting chance of suc¬ 
cess, but, as usual, dissensions shattered their organization. 
Park himself had no idea of appearing before the public as a 
suspicious character, and he participated in the National Union 
convention on the 30th of May and asserted his complete loyalty 
over his signature in the press. The National Unionists’ original 
candidate for mayor, Samuel T. Morgan, represented the con¬ 
servative element of the party and might possibly have held 
the vote opposed to Park, had not some of the nominees on 
the slate with him committed the tactical blunder of accepting 
also nomination on the Park ticket. The radicals seized the 
pretext thus offered to throw over the whole Morgan ticket and 
present one of their own, styled “unconditional Union,” with 
Dr. G. D. Johnson for mayor. At least two other minor can¬ 
didates were in the field. 

This potpourri practically insured the victory of Park. The 
only cloud on his horizon was a persistent rumor that, if he 


138 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


should be elected, General Washburn would depose him and take 
the city government into his own hands. Park accordingly 
wrote to the general, requesting an official statement, and re¬ 
ceived a chilling confirmation of his fears. The government, said 
Washburn, had been both disloyal and inefficient and could no 
longer be trusted to the present incumbents of office. 82 

Despite this damaging blow, the chaos among the loyalists' 
was so great that Park carried the election on June 30 with 
ease; and, true to his word, Washburn issued an order on the 
2d of July, forbidding any of the elected officers to qualify and 
appointing an acting mayor, recorder, treasurer, comptroller, 
tax collector, tax-collector on privileges, chief of police, and 
wharfmaster, who together were to form a board for the 
government of the city, their resolutions and ordinances being 
subject to revocation by the commanding general of the district 
of West Tennessee or by a superior military authority. In justi¬ 
fication of this action, it was alleged that the municipal govern¬ 
ment had failed utterly during the past two years to discharge 
its proper functions, and had shown disloyalty and lack of 
sympathy with the government of the United States and an 
indisposition to co-operate with the military. “They have grown 
from bad to worse, until a further toleration of them will not 
comport with the sense of duty of the commanding general.” 83 
A second order, on the 16th, supplanted the board created 
on the 2d by a new one to be known as “the provisional mayor 
and council of the city of Memphis,” with all the powers of the 
old board of mayor and aldermen. 84 In fact, West Tennessee 
remained under the wing of the army until the close of the war. 

82 Moore’s Rebellion Record, vof. xi, doc. 591 

83 Digest of the Charters, etc. of Memphis; Standard History of Mem¬ 
phis (J. P. Young, editor), p. 135. 

84 Standard History of Memphis (J. P. Young, editor), p. 136. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Presidential Campaign of 1864 

As the time for the presidential election approached, the 
Union men of Tennessee had to face the necessity of taking 
positive action. After securing the participation of Tennessee 
in the Baltimore convention, as if she were an active state in the 
Union, and aiding in the nomination of one of their own num¬ 
ber as vice-president, they could not, with honor, permit the 
election day to find them in an inglorious paralysis, content 
tamely to relinquish the right for which they had so loudly 
contended, or hesitating to support their leader at the polls. 
On the other hand, the prospect of an election at this time gave 
them pause. In no part of the state could a pronounced ad¬ 
ministration victory be promised. From- West Tennessee came 
the warning that an overwhelming defeat was more than 
probable in that section; allegations were not lacking that the 
vaunted loyalty of East Tennessee had undergone corruption; 
and Middle Tennessee, always an uncertain factor, was cowed 
by Confederate cavalry and guerillas. 

Even more formidable than the secessionist sympathizers, 
whose exclusion from the polls could be readily justified, was 
the Union peace party, powerful throughout the state and es¬ 
pecially so in West Tennessee, and drawing numerous recruits 
from those who had broken with the government on the eman¬ 
cipation issue. These men stood upon their loyalty and their 
rights under the Constitution, denounced the proclamations and 
laws regarding slavery as unconstitutional, attacked the president 
and governor for continuing the war, when the end for which 
it was inaugurated could now be obtained by giving up emanci¬ 
pation, declared for “the Union as it was and the Constitution 
as it is,” and seemed doubly fortified by the very legality of 
their position. 

To meet this crisis, hold an election, and insure an administra¬ 
tion victory, a course of procedure was now instituted which, 


i39 


140 ANDREW JOHNSON 

while direct evidence of detailed prearrangement among the 
president, the governor, and the radical leaders is lacking, was 
carried forward so smoothly and so undeviatingly to a successful 
conclusion, that all the participants seemed to be playing parts 
especially assigned to them and carefully conned from the 
beginning. 

On the 2d of August, a meeting of “the citizens of Tennessee” 
at Nashville requested the state executive committee to call a 
convention of loyal men to discuss the various problems facing 
the people. 1 The call, 2 which appeared on the 4th, named the 
first Monday in September as the date for the convention, and 
stated the questions there to be discussed as three:—the general 
condition of the country; the means of reorganizing civil gov¬ 
ernment and restoring law and order; and the expediency of 
holding a presidential election in the state in November, any 
necessary preliminaries for which the convention was to arrange. 

The convention 3 assembled at Nashville on the 5th of Sep¬ 
tember. Comment was aroused by the scarcity of financial and 
business men among the delegates. More than forty counties 
were represented, but most of the delegates had not been reg¬ 
ularly chosen—nor, indeed, chosen at all—but came on their own 
responsibility, as Union men. 4 Soldiers, who could be depended 
upon to support radical measures, were numerous among them. 
Wheeler’s activity in the eastern and southern parts of the 
state kept away many from those sections. 5 Indeed, the dis¬ 
turbances throughout Tennessee, the interruption of railroad 
communications, and the wretched condition of the roads, to¬ 
gether with the caution or indifference of the Unionists, resulted 
in so meagre an attendance that a postponement was at first 
talked of. 6 

The complete ascendency of the radicals and their determina¬ 
tion to tolerate no interference with their already matured plans 

Nashville Union, August 4; Nashville Times and Union, August 11. 

2 Nashville Union, August 4. 

3 The best account of the convention is in the Nashville Dispatch, Sep¬ 
tember 6-9. 

4 Nashville Union and Nashville Times and Union, September 8-9. 

5 Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 764. 

' Nashville Dispatch, September 6. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 141 

were immediately apparent. Samuel R. Milligan was chosen 
president and the committees on credentials, organization, and 
business, that together held the helm of the convention and 
determined its course, were made up with radical majorities. On 
the last and most important, composed of one member from 
each congressional district, were such powerful and uncompromis¬ 
ing personalities as Horace Maynard, G. W. Bridges, J. S. Fowler, 
J. B. Bingham, and L. C. Houk. In accordance with the recom¬ 
mendation of its committee, the convention voted to admit to 
the floor not only “all delegates regularly appointed by loyal 
primary county conventions,” but also “all unconditional Union 
men” of the state “who are for all the measures of the govern¬ 
ment looking to put down the rebellion.” 7 

By this time, the conservative element in the convention, 
lured to Nashville by the broadly worded call of the state com¬ 
mittee, which had given them grounds for hope that all shades 
of loyal opinion would be reflected in a liberal, non-partisan 
arrangement for the rehabilitation of the state, had been rudely 
awakened to the true condition of affairs. The majority were 
carrying things with a high hand, and it was apparent that 
they were bent on using the convention to push through a far- 
reaching plan, sweep aside all inconvenient constitutional im¬ 
pediments, and deliver Tennessee, for better or worse, into the 
hands of Johnson and his party. Outnumbered and outvoted by 
the administration men, and placed, if they remained in the 
convention, in an intolerable position as accessories to the rigid 
policy of the governor, to which they could in no way subscribe, 
the conservatives determined on the only possible course open 
to them—a dignified protest against any and all arbitrary or 
extra-legal measures of reconstruction; which failing, it only 
remained for them to withdraw. 

Accordingly, on the first day of the session, T. B. Thomas, 
of McMinn county, offered the pointed resolution that, as 
“written constitutions are the only guarantee of stability in 
elective governments, the only safeguards which the public have 
against irresponsible violence on the one hand and official usur¬ 
pation on the other,” and as “the horrors of civil war, which now 

7 Ibid.; Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 764. 


142 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


surround us, were introduced chiefly by conventions of men 
claiming authority from the people, yet proceeding in plain 
violation of constitutions which the people had established for 
the restraint of all their servants/’ the convention be guided and 
governed by the constitutions of the United States and of the 
state of Tennessee. 8 

Instantaneously a fierce storm of radical abuse broke upon 
Thomas’ devoted head. Colonel R. C. Crawford exclaimed that, 
in every convention of Unionists, some members were sure to 
show the cloven foot. Men like Thomas, he intimated, were 
secessionists at heart. The latter replied that he was proposing 
a peace-offering to his fellow-citizens, but Colonel Houk de¬ 
manded that the resolution be laid on the table, or, better still, 
thrown under the table. To the accompaniment of “tremendous 
applause, shouts, and whooping/’ he declared that he loved and 
venerated the Constitution of the United States, but denounced 
the constitution of Tennessee, which consigned men to dungeons 
for speaking against slavery. It was, in his opinion, nothing 
more nor less than a league with that institution. “Show me 
a stickler for constitutions,” he concluded, “and I’ll show you 
a man none too good a Union man.” 9 A delegate inquired if 
any constitution-advocate had ever been seen with a musket on 
his shoulder. Amid angry demonstrations, Thomas’ resolution 
was buried by referring it to the business committee. 

The next day (September 6) the radical onslaught continued, 
with Crawford and Houk again to the fore. The former moved 
that the president, through the governor, be requested to appoint 
a provost-marshal and deputy provost-marshals to enroll the 
militia and to make a list of all voters of each county in 1861, 
and ascertain the loyalty of each voter so enrolled, for the 
purpose of putting the elections into the hands of loyal men. 10 
Houk urged the convention to declare itself unalterably opposed 
to disunion, as well as to any armistice with the Confederates, 
as “treason of the darkest character,” the sponsors for which 
were “enemies of free institutions and our admirable form of 

8 Nashville Dispatch , September 6. 

8 Ibid. 

18 Ibid., September 7. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


143 


government, whose appreciation of freedom has been ruthlessly 
destroyed by thirst for office and political power”; and to indorse 
the National Union party as “the only party having the patriotism 
and determination to preserve the Union by whipping the rebels.” 
Some other device than test oaths must be adopted, he insisted, 
if disloyalists were to be kept from the polls; the ballot-box 
was too important to them at this time for oaths and conscientious 
scruples to influence their conduct. He believed that, even if all 
the copperheads and traitors were to take an oath to vote for 
Lincoln and Johnson, McClellan would still beat them. 11 

Perhaps to secure a formal expression of the already obvious 
temper of the convention, James Ramsay, a Bedford county 
conservative, and Colonel Houk now offered their resignations 
from the business committee. Ramsay’s was promptly accepted 
and Houk’s refused. Resolutions condemnatory of the platform 
and attitude of the Democrats followed one another in rapid 
succession, one asserting that “this howl of violated constitutions 
comes with a bad grace from those who, by peace communications 
and resolutions, are affording substantial aid and comfort to 
the rebels.” 12 

When the tempest of violence and recrimination had some¬ 
what abated, Thomas, who seems to have kept his head and his 
temper throughout the melee, calmly and emphatically presented 
the conservative ultimatum in two resolutions 13 which crystallized 
his party’s demands: 

“That the convention has met for the reorganization of the 
state government, and not as a meeting for the ratification of 
presidential candidates. 

“That, relying upon a just cause and the guidance of a good 
Providence, we are all willing to submit the presidential vote to 
the wisdom of the people, giving all truly loyal men an oppor¬ 
tunity to vote as they may see proper.” 

This was a sharp home-thrust at the program of the admin- 
istrationists, and their fury exceeded all bounds of parliamentary 
courtesy or decorum. Thomas was even refused permission to 

11 Ibid. 

12 Ibid. 

13 Ibid. 


144 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


explain his resolutions. In vain did he assert with dignity that 
he and his friends had only come as loyal men, at the call of 
the state committee, to aid in restoring the civil government, 
not to attend a ratification meeting; that, if they were mistaken 
as to the purpose of the convention, they were ready and begged 
leave to retire. Copperheads, said Captain Driver, should be 
invited out, not granted leave to go. “Kick them out!” shouted 
Colonel Byrd; “point them out, and, by God, I’ll lead the charge!” 
The conservatives withdrew amid maledictions and the parting 
shot from Byrd that there could be but two parties in the country, 
those of Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis. Thomas’ resolutions were 
laid on the table. 14 

The convention was now wholly in the hands of the Johnson 
party. Even a suggestion by Colonel R. M. Edwards of Bradley 
county that the electors of the state legislature comprise “the 
genuine Union men of the state, in connection with those qualified 
to vote under amnesty proclamation of President Lincoln” 15 
was so violently denounced as aiming to send friends of slavery 
to Congress and to “choke off the poor man” that its author 
asked permission to withdraw it. 

All was now in readiness for the resolutions of the business 
committee, 16 which were adopted unanimously on the 7th. An 
election for president and vice-president was to be held in 
Tennessee in November by those “who are now and have been 
attached to the National Union.” To qualify as an elector, a 
man must meet the requirements of the state constitution for 
that privilege, and, in addition, must either have voluntarily 
borne arms in the service of the United States during the war 
(such service being still continued, or terminated by an honorable 
discharge), or must be a known active friend of the government 
of the United States. He must also register with an election 
agent at least fifteen days before the election, the registration 
being open to public inspection, and the election officers being 
empowered to examine applicants on oath touching matters of 
fact and to reject anyone on proof of disloyalty. As a final 

14 Ibid. 

“Ibid., September 8. 

M Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 765. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 145 

test, he must, before depositing his vote, subscribe to the following 
oath, which merits careful comparison with the one required 
of county electors the preceding March: 

I solemnly swear that I will henceforth support the 
Constitution of the United States and defend it against the 
assaults of all its enemies; that I am an active friend of 
the government of the United States; that I sincerely rejoice 
in the triumph of its armies and navies and in the defeat 
and overthrow of the armies, navies, and all armed combina¬ 
tions in the interest of the so-called Confederate States.; 
that I will cordially oppose all armistices or negotiations 
for peace with rebels in arms, until the Constitution of the 
United States and all laws and proclamations made in pur¬ 
suance thereof shall be established over all the people of 
every state and territory embraced within the National 
Union; and that I will heartily aid and assist the loyal people 
in whatever measures may be adopted for the attainment 
of these ends; and further, that I take this oath freely and 
voluntarily and without mental reservation. So help me 
God.” 17 

Even this oath was to be but prima facie evidence of loyalty, 
subject to disproof. 

Continuing, the resolutions provided for the opening of polls 
at the county seat or some other suitable place in each county, 
and also, for the convenience of the soldiers, at places accessible 
to them and guarded so as to secure a free and fair election. 
Only unfaltering Union men could hold office, and all doubt¬ 
ful incumbents were to be removed. Lincoln and Johnson 
electors were nominated and an executive committee, consist¬ 
ing of five from each division of the state, was appointed, with 
authority to fill vacancies occurring in the ticket. The candi¬ 
dates and action of the Baltimore convention were endorsed, 
the course of Johnson as governor in Tennessee approved, and 
the immediate abolition of slavery and “its prohibition in the 
future by all suitable and proper amendments” demanded. 
Governor Johnson was requested to execute the resolutions “in 


17 Ibid. 


146 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


such manner as he may think will best subserve the interests 
of the government.” 

The convention purported to speak for the loyal sovereign 
people of Tennessee. The powerful support of the military 
government was pledged in a significant proclamation 18 issued 
opportunely on the 7th, while the convention was yet in session. 
The governor begins with his familiar statement of the reasons 
for his appointment and the constitutional basis of his authority, 
and enumerates the powers conferred upon him. By virtue 
of these powers, civil government will be reestablished in parts 
of the state, wherever and whenever the people evince a wish 
for it and a disposition to sustain the officers appointed; and 
appointments will be superseded by elections in accordance with 
the laws and constitution of the state previous to the rebellion 
or with new regulations prescribed by a popular convention, 
when elections are desired. All officers will follow, as the 
rule of their action, the old laws familiar to the people, when 
these are applicable, and will take the oath prescribed in the 
proclamation of January 26. “All cases, civil and criminal, 
coming before the judicial tribunals of this state, involving the 
rights of colored persons, shall be adjudicated, and be disposed 
of as free persons of color.” The strong arm of the govern¬ 
ment will be employed to protect loyal men and their property 
in unregenerate districts. 

In conclusion, the governor makes it clear that the days of 
grace for obstinate recalcitrants are about to end, and that no 
mercy will be shown in future. “I will once more make an 
appeal to the whole people of Tennessee to come forward 
promptly and willingly and aid me in the important work of 
restoring the government. Ample time has transpired for re¬ 
flection, return of loyalty and reason. Amnesty (has been?) 
kindly offered for your protection, and surely bitter experi¬ 
ence has demonstrated the folly of longer persisting in wanton 
opposition to the power and authority of the national govern¬ 
ment. I invoke you, therefore, again to return to your alle¬ 
giance, and aid in the protection of yourselves against lawless 
bands of marauding pirates and robbers, and thereby save your 

18 J. P. vol. xlviii,—459 5 Nashville Times and Union, September 13. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


147 


property, persons and firesides from outrages hitherto unknown to 
civilization. Longer resistance to law and order will not be 
tolerated. There must be an end to the criminal opposition 
.so long and wickedly waged against the laws and Constitution 
of the United States, and those who still continue to adhere 
to traitors and treason can no longer expect the protection 
of the government they daily revile and seek to destroy. They 
must yield their opposition (male and female) or they will be 
removed beyond the reach of harm to the government and 
authority of the United States.” 

On the 30th, Johnson, in a second proclamation, 19 professing 
his desire to cooperate with the “laudable efforts” of the con¬ 
vention of “a respectable portion of the loyal people of Ten¬ 
nessee, representing a large number of the counties of the 
state, and supposed to reflect the will of the Union men in their 
respective counties,” ordered an election on the 8th of Novem¬ 
ber for president and vice-president under the convention’s 
plan. Voters must take the oath exactly as worded in the reso¬ 
lutions. The governor would designate superintendents and 
registers of elections, and, in cases where no inspectors, judges, 
or sheriffs were regularly appointed, the registering agents were 
to act in their stead. Officers of the army and surgeons in 
charge of hospitals were to hold elections for the soldiers. Ow¬ 
ing to the short time remaining before the election, persons of 
“known and established loyalty” might vote, though they had 
not registered. 

That the convention should have ventured to prescribe the 
governor’s course for him and that he should have acquiesced 
without remark in its instructions and embodied them verbatim 
in his proclamation makes it all but certain that he either drew 
up the resolutions himself or approved them before they were 
voted upon. From the work of the convention he derived the 
advantage of appearing not to insist on any settled plan of 
his own, but simply to carry out the expressed will of the sov¬ 
ereign people. This pose, however, actually deceived nobody. 
The proclamation was a transparent attempt to save some 

19 Nashville Times and Union, October 3; Edward McPherson, Politi¬ 
cal History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, p. 436. 


148 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


remnants of Johnson’s popularity, if any there were, and at 
the same time to present an ostensibly united front of Unionists 
for the new policy, by distributing the responsibility for it as 
widely as possible. Indeed, the radicals needed all the strength 
to be derived from common action, for, as the full purport 
of the cunningly contrived oath came to be grasped, a storm 
of protest and denunciation burst upon them, and especially 
upon Johnson himself, whose dominating influence everyone 
recognized. 

The first clauses of the oath clearly disfranchised Confederate 
sympathizers. This was, of course, necessary and occasioned 
no comment. But more lay behind. The national Democratic 
convention, which had met at Chicago in August, while pro¬ 
nouncing unequivocally for the Union, had bitterly deplored 
the war and demanded immediate efforts for a cessation of 
hostilities and the restoration of peace on the simple basis of 
the Union; and its presidential candidate, McClellan, had an¬ 
nounced his conviction that, whenever it appeared probable that 
the Confederates would consent to these terms, “all the re¬ 
sources of statesmanship practised by civilized nations and 
taught by the traditions of the American people, consistent with 
the honor and interests of the country”, should be enlisted to 
secure an agreement. The adherents of this party in Tennessee 
decided to contest the election with the “unconditionals,” and, 
in September, placed an electoral ticket in the field. It was this 
manoeuvre which the Johnsonians had anticipated and fortified 
against by the clause of their oath pledging the voter to “oppose 
all armistices or negotiations for peace with rebels in arms,” 
until the restoration of the Constitution and the laws and proc¬ 
lamations made in pursuance of them over all the states and 
territories. This clause and the succeeding one, committing 
the voter to “whatever measures may be adopted for the attain¬ 
ment of these ends,” were a mortal blow at the pro-slavery 
Unionists and a guarantee that every man who cast his ballot 
in November would be either an “unconditional” or a perjurer. 

The outraged feelings of the peace Democrats crystallized 
in a deputation of the McClellan electors to Washington to 
present to the president their vehement protest against the ar- 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 149 

bitrary proceedings of the radicals. The signatures appended 
to this comprehensive and able document, 20 including those of 
Thomas A. R. Nelson, the president of the old Knoxville-Green- 
ville convention, William B. Campbell, ex-governor of the state 
and a general in the Union army, Emerson Etheridge, one of 
the foremost champions of the Union in 1861, and John 
Lellyett, formerly postmaster of Nashville and a man of sterling 
character, show how conditions had changed since the beginning 
of the war and how impossible it was for many devoted, high- 
minded loyalists to keep up with the course of the military 
governor. That such men combined to condemn the narrow¬ 
ness and intolerance of Johnson’s policy is a heavy indictment, 
which can be met only by the contention that, in this turbulent, 
disaffected state, the most extreme precautions were necessary 
to weather the crisis. 

Alluding but briefly to the departures made by the proclama¬ 
tion from the constitutional requirements for elections, the 
protestants concentrate their attack upon the oath. The obliga¬ 
tion to support and defend the Constitution of the United States 
they are, they declare, ready to renew daily, but they revolt 
from the required expression of gratification at “scenes of 
blood and wounds, of anguish and death.” They are committed 
to the prolongation of the war by no considerations of pleasure, 
profit, or honor, while their feelings “as Christians, as patriots, 
and as civilized men,” as well as the oaths they have taken, 
impel them to peace. They cannot consent “to swear at the 
ballot a war of extermination against their countrymen and 
kindred, or to prolong by their opposition for a single day 
after it can be brought to an honorable and lawful conclusion, 
a contest the most sanguinary and ruinous that has scourged 
mankind.” The president himself, in his famous note to Horace 
Greeley at the time of the Niagara Falls conference in July, 
had proposed to treat with rebels in arms. “Are we now to 
understand,” they inquire, “by this proclamation of one acting 
under your authority, and himself a candidate with you for the 
second office, that even the above proposition is withdrawn,— 

30 Edward McPherson, Political History of the United States during 
the Great Rebellion, p. 438. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


150 

that you will henceforth have no negotiations upon any terms 
but unrelenting war to the bitter end? Or are we to under¬ 
stand that while you hold this proposition open, or yourself 
free to act as your judgment may dictate, we, the citizens of 
Tennessee, shall swear to oppose your negotiations?” 

A climax of indignation is reached in discussing the pledge 
to support whatever measures may be adopted by the govern¬ 
ment in attaining its ends. “We cannot comment upon the 
absurdity of the obligation here imposed without danger of 
departing from the respectable propriety of language which 
we desire to observe in addressing the chief magistrate of the 
American people.” 

The memorialists epitomize their argument by a direct denial 
of the authority of the governor or president to alter or annul 
any law of Tennessee. They continue: “We demand that Ten¬ 
nessee be allowed to appoint her electors as expressly provided 
by the Federal Constitution which you (Lincoln) have sworn 
to support, protect, and defend, in the manner which the legis¬ 
lature thereof has prescribed. And to that end we respectfully 
demand of you, as the principal under whose authority this 
order has been issued, that the same shall be revoked. We 
ask that all military interference shall be withdrawn so far as 
to allow the loyal men of Tennessee a full and free election. 
By the loyal men of Tennessee we mean those who have not 
participated in the rebellion, or given it aid and comfort; or 
who may have compiled with such terms of amnesty as have 
been offered them under your authority.” Should the presi¬ 
dent, however, believe that the critical military situation re¬ 
quires additional precautions, the petitioners, while denying his 
legal right to exact it, will feel no hardship in taking a simple 
oath of loyalty; but they insist that Johnson’s oath be disallowed 
as “irrelevant, unreasonable, and not in any sense a test of 
loyalty” and as “calculated to keep legal and rightful voters 
from the polls.” The paper concludes by denominating the 
September convention “a mere partisan meeting, having no 
authority, and not representing the loyal men of Tennessee in 
any sense,” and intimating that, in the disturbed condition of 
the country, the Democratic ticket would not have been put 
in the field at all, but for the action of the radicals. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


I5i 

The Democratic delegation saw the president on the 15th of 
October and Lellyett read the protest to him. “May I inquire,” 
asked Lincoln, “how long it took you and the New York poli¬ 
ticians to concoct that paper?” When Lellyett said that none 
but Tennesseeans had had a hand in it, the president retorted: 
“I expect to let the friends of George B. McClellan manage 
their side of this contest in their own way, and I will manage 
my side of it in my way”; and closed the interview abruptly 
with an intimation that he might make some further answer 
in writing. 21 This he did on the 22d. 22 He denied having had 
any communication with Johnson regarding the subjects treated 
in the protest. The movement in Tennessee, he said, did not 
emanate from him, and could properly be considered only “as an 
independent movement of at least a portion of the loyal people 
of Tennessee.” He proposed to have nothing to do with it, 
either to sustain it or to modify it. He had no power under the 
Constitution and laws to interfere in a presidential election in a 
state, except, by virtue of his military authority, to give protec¬ 
tion against violence; and for this he saw no necessity. “Gover¬ 
nor Johnson, like any other loyal citizen of Tennessee,” the 
president observes, “has the right to favor any political plan he 
chooses; and, as military governor, it is his duty to keep the peace 
among and for the loyal people of the state. I cannot discern 
that by this plan he proposes any more. But you object to the 
plan. Leaving it alone will be your perfect security against it. 
It is not proposed to force you into it. Do as you please, on 
your own account, peaceably and loyally, and Governor Johnson 
will not molest you, but will protect you against violence as far 
as in his power.” Presumably an election strictly under the old 
system is not now possible. In any event, the validity of the 
vote will be determined neither by the president nor by the gover¬ 
nor, but by Congress. 

The incident was closed by the rejoinder of three of the dele¬ 
gates, Campbell, Lellyett, and Bailie Peyton, on the 29th. 23 “The 
idea that the president himself can make, or repeal, or modify a 

21 Ibid., p. 439; Savage, The Life and Public Services of Andrew John¬ 
son, p. 313. 

22 McPherson, p. 425; Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 766. 

28 McPherson, p. 440. 


152 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


law of the land, state or national, constitutional or statutory, 
though freely practiced upon by yourself, is,” they say, “a doc¬ 
trine of despotism in ‘irrepressible conflict’ with the principles of 
public liberty. And when these things are done by subordinates , 
the evil becomes intolerably oppressive, and calls for the firmest 
and most active lawful resistance which a people deserving to be 
free can offer.” The plan of Governor Johnson, an agent, does, 
in reality, emanate from the president as principal, who, unless 
he disavows it, becomes responsible for it. The present “inde¬ 
pendent movement” in Tennessee, contrary to all lawful author¬ 
ity, finds its parallel in the independent movement of the seces¬ 
sionists in 1861, and the government is bound to oppose both. 
Then “there was no menace of coercion or violence toward any 
who should consent to see the Constitution violated and the ‘po¬ 
litical plan’ carried out without opposition. But the bayonet was 
kept in view, as it is in this case. Public meetings were menaced, 
and perhaps broken up by armed force. And so it is now. Those 
opposed to the ‘independent movement’ were denounced as 
traitors, and so they are now. We had vigilance committees and 
mob violence then. We have now secret leagues, and are liable 
at any time to arbitrary arrest, as well as to mob violence which 
is now used in our midst. . . . ‘Governor Johnson,’ you say, ‘like 
any other loyal citizen, has a right to favor any political plan he 
chooses.’ We do not so read the duty of a citizen. Some of the 
political plans of our day are devised to overturn the Constitu¬ 
tion and government of the United States—and this is one of 
them. The Southern rebellion is another. Neither the citizen 
nor Governor Johnson has a right to favor such plans, unless it 
be upon the principle advanced by you as a member of Congress, 
that ‘any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, 
have the right’ to revolutionize their government; that ‘this is 
a most valuable, a most sacred right.’ We shall despair of the 
republic if these principles of anarchy, as embodied in you, shall 
be adopted by the people in your reelection.” Any assurance of 
protection for persons holding a separate election in Tennessee 
at variance with Governor Johnson’s plan is but a cruel mockery; 
to attempt such an election would be to jeopardize the lives of 
the voters, as anti-administration citizens already know too well 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 153 

from experience. Therefore, since the military power is in the 
ascendant, the laws disregarded, and the president deaf to ap¬ 
peals for justice, the McClellan ticket is withdrawn. “There will 
be no election for president in Tennessee in 1864. You and 
Governor Johnson may ‘manage your side of it in your own 
way’; but it will be no election” 

Examination of the oath which engendered so much passion 
and excitement points to the conclusion that, considering the 
supreme importance of the election, the peculiar situation of 
Tennessee, the passive disloyalty of the great majority of the 
people, and the impossibility, under the circumstances, of con¬ 
ducting an election in strictly legal fashion, the obligation im¬ 
posed on voters was none too strict, if we except the clauses 
aimed at the loyal Democrats. It was of the utmost importance, 
from the standpoint of the government, to place the restoration 
of the state in the hands of those who could be depended upon 
as whole-hearted for the Union, and any so disposed could hardly 
object to “the suppression of the rebellion” or the triumph of 
the armies and navies of the United States. Former citizens, 
who had sought to sever their connection with the Union, could 
not expect to be received back without earnests of complete al¬ 
legiance on their part. If, as was generally admitted, the am¬ 
nesty oath was a failure in Tennessee, and bushwhackers and 
marauders were frequently captured with certificates of amnesty 
in their pockets, 24 a more stringent test was imperatively required. 

On the other hand, without going into the question of whether 
the peace Democrats throughout the Union were justified in their 
policy of attacking and opposing the government, it is fair to ob¬ 
serve that the practical considerations which allowed them to 
vote in the other states should have secured them the same privi¬ 
lege in Tennessee, if Tennessee was permitted to vote at all. 
There was a manifest inconsistency in assuming that Tennessee 
retained all her rights and privileges in the Union, while denying 
the franchise to loyal men who would have been allowed to 
exercise it in other states. If, notwithstanding her continued 
membership in the Union, she was, by force of circumstances, 
prevented from acting with the same freedom as her sisters, she 

24 Nashville Union, September 22. 


154 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


should not have been forced into a compromising position as a 
prop of the National Union party, at the expense of the unques¬ 
tioned rights of loyal citizens; action should have been deferred 
for a few weeks and then all Union men united in the labor of 
reorganization, without reference to the national issues which 
divided them. Finally, it is difficult to deny that the clause pledg¬ 
ing the voter to assist in “whatever measures may be adopted” 
for the reestablishment of the Union was, as the Democratic 
delegates declared, absurd—an insult to the intelligence of the 
citizens. 

The petitioners, in their rejoinder to the president, referred to 
the breaking up by an armed force of a McClellan meeting on 
the 2ist of October. They insisted that they were proceeding 
peaceably and legally and that provost-guards were present at 
their request to insure order, when the soldiers of a Tennessee 
regiment suddenly rushed into the hall with guns and pistols, 
extinguished the lights, ordered the “rebels and traitors” to dis¬ 
perse, and drove them out. These soldiers later published over 
their signatures a card in the Nashville Times , 25 affirming that 
they acted entirely on their own initiative and that neither Gov¬ 
ernor Johnson nor anyone else, not an active participant, knew 
anything of their intentions. 

Lincoln and Johnson meetings were hardly less exciting. The 
night of October 24 was a wild one in Nashville. A negro torch¬ 
light procession was held and “shots were freely fired.” John¬ 
son addressed the crowd at the capitol in a speech of which we 
have several highly colored and garbled reports, the-most favor¬ 
able of which does him no credit as a statesman. He seems, 
rather, to have resorted to the devices of the demagogue to sway 
the ignorant and excited blacks, and his extravagances of ex¬ 
pression suggest his too constant friend, the whiskey bottle, as 
the inspiration of his unfortunate diatribe. 

It is impossible to get at exactly what Johnson said. The 
principal loyal paper in Nashville, the Union, does not report 
his address at all. The most complete record is an apocryphal 
one from a more than questionable source, and attributes to the 
governor words which it seems impossible he could have used; 


McPherson, p. 440. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


155 


but, as the speech created too much of a stir to be disregarded 
altogether, recourse may be had to this account as the only de¬ 
tailed one available, due allowance being made for its manifest 
inaccuracy. 26 

The estates of the aristocracy, Johnson declared, should be 
divided among free farmers. The great planters sneer at negro 
equality, while, about their dwellings, one may see mulatto chil¬ 
dren bearing unmistakable resemblance to their masters, the 
product of “a concubinage, compared to which polygamy is a 
virtue.” Tennessee’s destiny must be controlled by loyal men 
and “rebels must be dumb.” “Let them gather their treasonable 
conclaves elsewhere—among their friends in the Confederacy.” 

The climax is reached in an outburst of absurdity which al¬ 
most destroys faith in even the approximate accuracy of the nar¬ 
rative. The governor had, he said, a proclamation of his own 
to make. Without reference to the president or any other person, 
he proclaimed full, broad, and unconditional freedom to every 
man in Tennessee. Looking upon the persecuted and despised 
people before him, he was almost induced to wish that, as of 
old, a Moses might arise, to lead them from the land of bondage 
to the promised land of freedom. “You are our Moses!” shouted 
the crowd. “Well, then,” Johnson assented, “humble and un¬ 
worthy as I am, if no better shall be found, I will indeed be 
your Moses, and lead you through the Red Sea of war and 
bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace.” If these were 
indeed the governor’s words, they brought him only personal dis¬ 
credit as an unscrupulous agitator: politically they were of little 
significance, and legally of none at all. 

The election on the 8th of November was, for Tennessee, a 
mere form, with the outcome predetermined. The only question 
was as to the size of the vote, and in this respect the result was 
disappointing. It had become apparent that the Confederates 
would take advantage of Sherman’s absence in Georgia to make 
one more desperate attempt for Tennessee, and, while their 
forces were gathering, nobody who had not already committed 
himself irrevocably was disposed to take a stand on either side. 
Already the advance of Breckenridge into East Tennessee had 

20 Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. xxxv, quoting a corres¬ 
pondent of the Cincinnati Gazette. 


156 ANDREW JOHNSON 

caused consternation there. Partisan cavalry swarmed in the 
state, south and west, in anticipation of Hood’s moyement against 
Nashville. In West Tennessee, a Colonel Yansil had been de¬ 
clared provisional governor of the state by the Confederates and, 
with the cooperation of Forrest, had ordered an organization of 
the militia, to include all citizens between sixteen and eighteen 
and between forty-five and fifty, the remainder being subject to 
conscription. 27 Requisitions for pork and grain were made on the 
people and any pro-Union activity was forbidden under penalty 
of death. In many counties, and generally in the rural districts, 
voting was impossible. 

The returns are untrustworthy. 28 Only a few scattering votes 
went for McClellan and Pendleton. Nashville gave them 25 
out of 1342. Shelby county, including Memphis, went for Lin¬ 
coln and Johnson, 1579 to 24, but, on an “unconditional Union” 
estimate of 3500 to 4500 possible voters and 2400 enrolled militia¬ 
men, the showing was poor. 29 Bingham wrote from Memphis 
that the poor laborers and small dealers showed their loyalty by 
coming to the polls, but the wealthy and influential citizens 
worked actively to keep down the vote. 30 The Tennessee soldiers 
in the regiments and hospitals swelled the Lincoln majority by 
over 8500. 31 

Congress, by joint resolution, rejected the electoral vote of 
Tennessee on the ground that the state had “rebelled against the 
government of the United States, and was in such condition on 
the 8th day of November, 1864, that no valid election for electors 
of president and vice-president of the United States, according to 
the Constitution and laws thereof, was held on said day” ; 32 and 
the president acquiesced in this decision. 

27 J. P., vol. xlix,—665. 

28 Ibid., vol. lii,—1172; also the Nashville newspapers. 

29 J. P., vol. lii,—1189. 

30 Ibid. 

31 Ibid.,—1172, 

32 Congressional Globe, 38th Congress, 2d session, pp. 522, 533, 534, 548, 
574, 590, 608, 711. 


CHAPTER IX 


Reorganization Accomplished 

As soon as the national election was out of the way, it was 
designed to push forward the work of state reconstruction in 
accordance with the governor’s proclamation. This time the 
initiative came from the East Tennessee Union executive com¬ 
mittee. They prefix their call, 1 dated the 12th of November, 
1864, by the naive assertion that the heavy vote cast in Tennessee 
shows the disposition of the people to put down the rebellion and 
restore the state; therefore, a preliminary state convention will 
be held at Nashville on the 19th of December, “to form a ticket 
to be run for a constitutional convention” by the loyal men of 
the state. (The wording of this call subsequently becomes of 
high importance.) The pro-Union citizens of East Tennessee 
are summoned to Knoxville on the 6th of December, to appoint 
their delegates to this nominating convention. 

By the irony of fate, this call, which seemed to promise the 
speedy realization of the long deferred hopes of the Unionists, 
was but the harbinger of a period of distress and anxiety for 
them, which, though brief, was fully as acute as any to which 
they had been subjected during the war. On the 13th of No¬ 
vember, Breckenridge surprised General Gillem’s force of the 
“governor’s guard” in East Tennessee and drove it in confusion 
to Knoxville, followed by a terror-stricken stampede of loyalists, 
who abandoned their property to the vengeance of the enemy 
and fled for their lives. The Chattanooga Gazette reported that, 
during the week following Gillem’s defeat, 3401 refugees (596 
men, 1115 women, and 1690 children) arrived at Chattanooga 
without food, in the most terrible weather, with the mud knee- 
deep. Those who could not be sent on to Nashville were gather¬ 
ed into a camp around the already overcrowded refugee house. 2 

1 Nashville Union, November 18, 1864; House of Representatives, Mis¬ 
cellaneous Documents, 39th Congress, 1st session, no. 55, p. 5. 

3 Nashville Union, November 25. 


158 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


“It is sickening to the heart,” Brownlow wrote from Knoxville, 
“to stand here and look at one thousand men, women, and chil¬ 
dren coming in through the mud and rain, leading their stock, 
... to save what they can. ... I have no houses, no shanties, 
no anything to give them shelter. The picture is worse than 
'I make it.” 3 

Notwithstanding these discouragements, the preparations for 
the convention went on. Since a fairly proportioned representa¬ 
tion of all parts of the state by regularly chosen delegates was 
impossible, the Union leaders determined to make the meeting 
a sort of informal assembly of Tennessee loyalists, who could 
take at least the preliminary steps in reorganization and bring the 
work up to the point where its consummation could be speedily 
effected when a more auspicious occasion offered. To this end, 
it was decided to open the doors as widely as possible and to 
encourage all who were for the Union to come and join the 
movement; in other words, to make the convention a meeting 
not of representatives, but of Unionists. Thus, the call of the 
executive committee of Middle Tennessee, issued on the 29th of 
November, while suggesting the election of delegates, declared: 
“The people meet to take such steps as wisdom may direct to 
restore the state of Tennessee to its once honored status in the 
great National Union. ... If you cannot meet in your counties, 
come upon your own personal responsibility. It is the assembling 
of Union men for the restoration of their own commonwealth to 
life and a career of success.” 4 Commenting on this call, the 
Nashville Union of the 30th said: “Every loyal man, who feels 
any interest in the reorganization of the state and a change in 
our organic law, so as to conform it to the exigencies of the times, 
has a right to attend and be heard.” 

Meanwhile, Hood advanced from Georgia into Middle Ten¬ 
nessee, for the purpose of striking the lines of communication of 
Sherman’s army in Georgia and compelling it to retire from that 
state. General George H. Thomas had been detached by Sher¬ 
man to watch and deal with Hood, and he now fell back before 
him to draw him into a battle with the concentrated Union army, 

8 J- P-, vol. lii,—1357. 

4 House Miscellaneous Documents, 39th Congress, 1st session, no. 55. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


159 


as far as possible from his base. The strategic significance of 
Thomas’ retreat was lost on the mass of the people, who saw 
only a retrograde movement, spelling disaster to the Federals; 
and everywhere throughout the state the secession sympathizers 
raised their heads. 

On the 30th of November, Schofield, with a part of Thomas’ 
army, checked Hood at Franklin on the Harpeth river, but the 
Confederates pressed on again until confronted by Thomas him¬ 
self, with his whole force, at bay three miles from Nashville. 
The capital was in an uproar. Swarms of citizens and laborers 
were enlisted for defence. The suspense was prolonged by a 
period of terrible weather, with storms of sleet and ice, making 
military operations impossible, during which the two armies 
watched each other. The apprehension extended to Washington 
and to Grant’s headquarters at City Point. The war department 
did not fully comprehend the difficulties that embarrassed 
Thomas. What it did appreciate was that another Confederate 
army, apparently caught at a disadvantage, seemed likely to make 
good its escape, as others had done before, from another over¬ 
cautious Federal general. Grant goaded and scolded Thomas, 
but the latter was determined not to move until conditions were 
more favorable. Finally the commander-in-chief set out for 
Nashville to supplant Thomas by Logan; but on the 15th of De¬ 
cember, before he arrived, the weather changed. Thomas at once 
made the long delayed attack and, on the 15th and 16th, utterly 
crushed Hood’s army and drove the scattered fragments into 
Alabama. The Confederate force in Tennessee, as an effective 
instrument of invasion, was destroyed. Here, at last, was the 
decisive victory for which the Union men had yearned and 
prayed. The last hope of the secessionists that the state might 
yet be won for the Confederacy was gone, and, for the first time, 
Southern sympathizers were compelled to realize that the only 
course open to them was to make the best possible terms for 
their submission. 

The Confederate invasion had, of course, made it impossible to 
hold the Union convention on the 19th of December, as origi¬ 
nally announced. On that day, the executive committee of Mid¬ 
dle Tennessee published a card 5 postponing it until the 8th of 

'Nashville newspapers, December 19. 


i6o 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


January, the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, and call¬ 
ing upon the eastern and western committees to cooperate in 
their sections. There was now no excuse for further delay, for 
the battle of Nashville had taken the heart out of the secession¬ 
ists and silenced the peace Democrats, while the chaotic condition 
of the state called for immediate remedy. In West Tennessee, 
business was almost at a standstill on account of the disorder and 
the prohibitive trade regulations. The army officials were un¬ 
popular and friction between them and the civilian leaders was 
constant. They were charged with susceptibility to bribes and 
with bestowing favors regardless of the records and merits of 
claimants. 6 The boards of claims, acting under military author¬ 
ity, were denounced as capricious and not above political proselyt¬ 
ing in making their awards. 7 The state was still infested with 
marauders, who were fast reducing it to utter desolation and 
whom the army, directing all its energies to the destruction of 
the enemy’s main forces, had neither time nor men to suppress. 
The advantages to the citizens of taking their government into 
their own hands became more and more apparent. General 
Thomas, too, for military reasons, desired them to do so, that 
he might withdraw his garrisons for service at the front. He 
urged this consideration on Johnson in a dispatch 8 of the 30th 
of December, and received the latter’s assurances that no effort 
to that end would be spared on his part. 9 

No further military vicissitudes interfered with the great final 
act toward which all loyal energies were now directed. The 
convention 10 met at Nashville on the 9th of January—the 8th, 
the day named in the call, falling on a Sunday. The same ir¬ 
regularities which had characterized previous conventions ap¬ 
peared again in this one. With delegates chosen by mass meet¬ 
ings, more or less representative, mingled citizens who repre¬ 
sented their friends or only themselves, and soldiers sent by 
their regiments. The opinion seems to have prevailed at first that 
the meeting was but a preliminary one, to take steps for assem- 

J. P., vol. lii,—1303. 

1 Ibid.; vol. liii,— 1463 ; vol. liv,— 1654. 

8 0 . R., series i, vol. xlv, part ii, p. 421. 

•Ibid., p. 471. 

10 The best account of the convention is in the Nashville Dispatch, Jan¬ 
uary 10-16, 1865. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 161 


bling a more regular convention, and consequently that it was 
hardly worth while to insist upon annoying formalities. This 
view was certainly justified by the wording of the original call 
and was assumed by Colonel S. R. Rodgers, the president of the 
convention, in his opening speech. 11 

The only difficulty, therefore, concerning the admission of 
delegates, turned on the degree of loyalty to be required. The 
original report 12 of the committee on credentials recommended 
that all “who give an active support to the Union cause and who 
have never voluntarily borne arms against the government” be 
seated, but the majority were uncompromising in their determi¬ 
nation to exclude the non-belligerent secessionists whose secret 
cooperation had wrought so much damage in the state and em¬ 
barrassed the Federal armies; and, on motion of Colonel Houk 
of East Tennessee—the same who loomed large in the September 
convention—another clause was added, barring those who had 
ever “voluntarily given aid and comfort to the enemy.” 13 The 
delegates of each county were directed to select a chairman who 
should furnish the secretary of the convention with the list of 
eligibles present from his county and distribute tickets of ad¬ 
mission to them. All soldiers who came as delegates were 
admitted. 14 

The next question was on the basis of voting in the convention. 
A resolution, 15 offered by R. R. Butler of Johnson county, to give 
each county at least one vote, with one additional for every hun¬ 
dred votes cast by it against “separation and representation” in 
1861, was at first adopted, but encountered the fierce opposition 
of the Middle and West Tennesseeans, who claimed that the elec¬ 
tions in their sections had been interfered with by force and 
fraud and did not fairly show their Union strength, and threat¬ 
ened to withdraw from the convention unless their delegates 
were accorded individual recognition. 16 To preserve harmony, 
Mr. Butler’s resolutions were reconsidered and withdrawn 17 and 

“ Nashville Dispatch, January io. 

“ Ibid. 

13 Ibid. 

14 Ibid. 

15 Ibid., January ii. 

w Ibid. 

17 Ibid., January 12. 


162 ANDREW JOHNSON 

the “one man, one vote” method substituted, 18 but not before the 
charges and counter-charges of disloyalty had led the debate away 
from the subject immediately under consideration and revealed 
the divergent views of the delegates as to the proper policy of 
reconstruction. Colonel Houk, speaking for East Tennessee, ad¬ 
vocated the exclusion of every former citizen who had voted for 
“separation and representation” in 1861 or had afterwards volun¬ 
tarily aided the rebellion from voting in state elections, testi¬ 
fying in court against loyal men, practicing law in the state, or 
serving on a jury for five years after the declaration of peace, 
and then only on filing a petition in the Federal court of the 
circuit or district where he resided, with the allegation, supported 
by the sworn evidence of two citizens, whose unbroken loyalty 
antedated the war, that he had been actively loyal during the 
five years of probation. 19 A. J. Clements, of Macon county, 
wished to divide all former citizens into three classes:—first, 
qualified voters, who must take oath, backed by the oaths of two 
loyal persons, either that they had voted against separation in 
1861 and had never willingly aided the rebellion nor wished it 
success, but had warmly desired the triumph of the Federal gov- 
'ernment; or that they had acted loyally during the twelve months 
last past, hoped for the defeat of the Confederacy, and would do 
all they could to accomplish it; second, passive non-combatant 
subjects—comprising those who would agree to do nothing in 
support of the rebellion—entitled to protection, but excluded 
from voting and holding office; and, third, all others, who were 
not to enjoy the protection of the laws or the right of action in 
the courts, whose oath would not be taken against either of the 
other classes, and who were subject to expulsion on three months’ 
notice. 20 D. P. Gass of Sevier county proposed the disfranchise¬ 
ment for ninety-nine years of all who had voted for separation 
or had voluntarily born arms against the Union and was for 
precluding the legislature from reinstating any for at least ten 
years after the war. Mr. Carper, a narrow-minded, keen-witted, 
implacable delegate from Davidson county, declared, in a rous- 

18 Ibid. The newspaper accounts are not clear on this point, but, on all 
subsequent ballots, each delegate apparently cast an independent vote. 

19 Nashville Dispatch, January 12. 

29 Ibid. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 163 

ing speech, that the rebels had not repented, but had held out as 
long as possible in their efforts to destroy the government, and 
were now coming back to get office. ‘The only right they have,” 
he said, “is to be hung. You cannot make a good citizen of a 
rebel. You may paint a crow white or red, but that won’t pre¬ 
vent him from stealing your corn. If the rebels are allowed to 
come back, the few Union men of Tennessee will have to leave 
the state.” 21 The applause with which Mr. Carper’s remarks 
were greeted showed that many in the convention were of the 
same opinion. 

From the first day of the session, it was apparent that the 
radical delegates, who were probably the most numerous and 
certainly the most determined and united party, and who had 
gained control of the business committee, consisting of three 
members from each section of the state, which was to frame the 
resolutions for discussion, had become, after the example of their 
friends of the September convention, disciples of irregularity. 
They were now bent upon disregarding the plain meaning of the 
call of the 12th of November, dispensing altogether with a second 
convention, and themselves drawing up immediately constitu¬ 
tional amendments and other regulations embodying their plan 
for reconstruction, to be submitted directly to the people for their 
approval. The conservatives, on the contrary, were opposed to 
any doubtful measures which would admit of pertinent compari¬ 
sons with the much denounced acts of the secessionists in 
1861, and were insistent that expedition be sacrificed to regular¬ 
ity and to as close an approximation to absolute legality as was 
possible under the circumstances. 

Their program was outlined in resolutions 22 offered by Judge 
Trewett of Hamilton county, which the radicals succeeded in 
referring to the business committee without debate. They sub¬ 
mitted “that this convention, being a primary assemblage of the 
people, has no constitutional powers to resolve itself into a con¬ 
vention of delegates, and in that capacity revise or amend our 
state constitution; that the true policy which should govern this 
convention is to set forth a declaration of principles for the con¬ 
sideration of the people, and prepare a general ticket for dele- 

21 Ibid. 

“Ibid., January 11. 


164 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


gates, who shall be appointed and elected according to the Union 
strength in the three grand divisions of the state; that the best 
interests of the state demand that we yet continue a military 
government until the rebellion shall cease to have an army in the 
field; that an election be holden for delegates to a state convention 
on the first day of February, 1865, in the same way and manner 
that members to the general assembly were elected immediately 
preceding the rebellion, who shall meet at Nashville on the 5th 
of February, 1865, revise the state constitution, and submit the 
ratification of the same to the people of Tennessee on the 4th 
of March, 1865; and at the same time members to the legislature 
of the state and to Congress shall be elected, in such mode and 
manner as the revised or amended constitution may prescribe 
. . . ; that the convention of delegates, in the amended consti¬ 
tution, should, upon the basis of the Union vote, fix the number 
of representatives in Congress, and in each branch of the state 
legislature, to which the people of the state shall be entitled in 
the first session, and redistrict the state accordingly.” It was 
further proposed that the coming convention declare for the un¬ 
conditional abolition of slavery, and that none who voluntarily 
sided with the rebellion be eligible as delegate to the convention 
or as voter in the elections. 

The radicals fell back upon the fundamental right of the sover¬ 
eign people, for their own salvation in a crisis of their fate, to 
transcend the bounds set by themselves to their normal action. 
The report 23 of the majority of the business committee, read to 
the convention on the nth, proposed this preamble to their 
resolutions: “The first article and the first section of the decla¬ 
ration of rights in the constitution of the state of Tennessee de¬ 
clares : ‘That all power is inherent in the people, and all govern¬ 
ments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their 
peace, safety, and happiness; and for the advancement of these 
ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right 
to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as 
they may think proper.’ Therefore a portion of the citizens of 
the state of Tennessee and of the United States of America, in 
convention assembled, do propound the following alterations and 


23 Ibid., January 12. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 165 

amendments to the constitution, which, when ratified by the 
sovereign loyal people, shall be and constitute a part of the per¬ 
manent constitution of the state of Tennessee.” 

The amendments to be submitted were four in number. The 
first abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the words of 
the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, then pend¬ 
ing before the country; the second forbade the legislature to 
make any law “recognizing the right of property in man”; the 
third substituted for popular election of the judges of the state 
supreme court, attorney-general, and reporter, appointment by 
the governor, with the advice and consent of the senate; the 
fourth admitted to the suffrage all citizens of Tennessee who had 
voluntarily borne arms in the service of the United States (thus 
giving the vote to the negro soldiers), declared that color should 
not disfranchise any person who, by state law, should be a 
competent witness in the courts against a white man, and per¬ 
manently denied the ballot to holders of civil, judicial, and other 
offices in the state who had given aid and comfort to the Con¬ 
federates, unless they could establish their loyalty beyond a 
doubt, and also to all officers in the Confederate army above the 
rank of lieutenant-colonel, leaving to the legislature, however, the 
power to reenfranchise such persons, well disposed toward the 
government of the United States, as, in their judgment, merited 
the privilege. Appended was a schedule invalidating the acts of 
the secession government and elaborating the details for state 
reconstruction. 

The first two amendments were certain to command the almost 
unanimous support of the convention, for the pro-slavery loyal¬ 
ists had been alienated from the “unconditionals” by the quar¬ 
rels of the past autumn. The third and fourth embodied the 
views of the radicals, with modifications calculated to render 
them palatable to delegates inclined to leniency. Thus a loophole 
through which to escape permanent disfranchisement was pro¬ 
vided in the discretion accorded to the legislature. Delegates 
were not lacking who urged the granting of the suffrage to all 
loyal negroes, and a petition 24 from the “colored citizens” of 
Nashville was read in the convention, asking this boon and the 


91 Ibid. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


166 

still more precious one of admission of negro testimony on oath 
in court in cases where white persons were concerned. The 
majority were not disposed to go so far, but they proposed to 
enfranchise the negro soldiers, and conceded, as regards the rest 
of the blacks, that, whenever the legislature chose to extend the 
right to testify in the courts, the vote should go with it. 

J. R. Hood of Hamilton county, the editor of the Chattanooga 
Gazette, made a minority report, 25 vigorously denying the author¬ 
ity of the convention to offer amendments to the people. The 
call under which it had assembled, he observed, specifically stated 
its object to be to take council and to plan for a second “duly 
elected and qualified body of delegates, clothed with full power 
to make all necessary amendments/’ Many of the present “dele¬ 
gates,” on their own testimony, possessed no representative char¬ 
acter at all, but came as individual members of the Union party 
of the state. There was danger in following, “even by implica¬ 
tion,” in the footsteps of the secessionists, whose revolutionary, 
lawless acts had been so freely condemned. Hood’s proposition 
was that the convention request the military governor to issue 
writs for an election by general ticket on the 226. of February 
of one hundred delegates, who should meet at Nashville on the 
4th of March, “to take into consideration such measures as will 
make the organic law of the state homogeneous with the liberal 
policy of the government of the United States,” and that the 
people vote on the measures recommended on the 20th of April. 

Not only the assumed authority of the convention to propose 
amendments at all, but also specific points in the majority plan— 
and particularly the third and fourth amendments—came in for 
severe strictures. Speakers inveighed against the extension of 
the franchise to the negro soldiers, the proposal to discontinue 
popular election of judges, the strict disfranchising clauses. 
Lincoln’s amnesty proclamation was an inducement to the rebels 
to return home and receive all their old rights, argued Judge 
Gaunt of Bradley county, and the convention could not depart 
from the president’s policy. A man could not be deprived of his 
rights and, nevertheless, be made a good citizen. 26 Colonel Byrd, 
of Roane county, revived an old ghost, once laid by Governor 

25 Ibid. 

26 Ibid., January 13. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 167 

Johnson, when he urged that the convention plan he discarded 
and a legislature elected to propose amendments in a constitu¬ 
tional way. 27 

Gradually, however, realizing the necessity of cooperation, if 
they were to make any headway against the determined radicals, 
the moderates rallied around Hood and his hundred-delegate 
idea. Hood himself led the attack in a blunt, defiant speech 28 on 
the 12th, in which he directly impunged the motives of the radical 
leaders and accused them of attempting to browbeat their oppo¬ 
nents by questioning their loyalty. The action advocated by 
the majority, he contended, would be a fraud on the people. 
‘‘The disinterested masses can trace the ruin of the country to the 
insolent demands of party tacticians. What accounts for the 
surprising phase affairs have presented in this convention? . . . 
It is the party lash. I tell gentlemen to beware. They cannot 
whip the loyalists of Tennessee into the traces. They have been 
fighting arrogance and insolence too long to succumb to the en¬ 
croachments of those who may have personal ends to accom¬ 
plish.” The “would-be managers of the people” are trying to 
trick them by combining good and bad measures in one propo¬ 
sition and thus leading them to commit themselves to the bad— 
“to sanction the act of this mob”-—for the sake of securing the 
good. One admirable measure they propose is the enfranchise¬ 
ment of the negro soldiers. “Loyal black soldiers are better than 
white rebels.” 

Hood and the moderates might have saved their breath. The 
radicals were holding in reserve their final thunderbolt, waiting 
for the decisive moment to launch it. Governor Johnson had 
thus far taken no active part in the proceedings, but the intensity 
with which he followed every move in this final act of the drama, 
in which his was the principal part, may be imagined. Now it 
was proposed and voted that he be invited to address the con¬ 
vention on the evening of the 12th. This brought him forward 
just after Hood’s telling speech. The stage was set for him, 
and before he had finished, he seemed to be the only actor upon it. 

With solid practical argument and trenchant directness, he 
struck straight at the foundation of the moderate position. 

27 Ibid. 

28 Ibid., January 15. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


168 

“Suppose you do violate law,” he said; “if by so doing you restore 
the law and the constitution, your consciences will approve your 
course, and all the people will say, amen! You are without law 
and without a constitution, and it is your duty to get it back for 
the people. ... If you do boldly what the hour demands, 
you . . . may hold up your hands when the struggle is 

ended and swear that you have saved your state and the repub¬ 
lic. . . . This is the most favorable opportunity that has pre¬ 
sented itself. . . . Why not agree upon two or three simple 

propositions, and get back your state government?” Were the 
matter in his hands, he declared, he would simply propose to the 
people that slavery be abolished and its resurrection forever pro¬ 
hibited. This great monopoly, essentially “contrary to the gen¬ 
ius of a free state,” is the foe now engaged in a war to the death 
with the government. Crush it in Tennessee, and its death- 
knell will be sounded throughout the land. It matters not how 
the movement is started, so long as the sovereign people finally 
acquiesce in it. “Any man can draw up a few ‘whereases/ sub¬ 
mit them to his friends, and they recommend them to the people 
of the state; and if the people ratify them, the subject-matter be¬ 
comes law,—it is constitutional, and the procedure consonant 
with the spirit of popular government. If you call a convention, 
involving expense, delay, and vexation, their action must, after 
all, go to the people to be sanctioned by them before it can become 
a part of the constitution.” Then let the people act. The im¬ 
portant thing is to restore the civil government at once, 
free from the encumbrances that brought on the rebellion. Ac¬ 
cordingly, it is unwise to waste time now over minor defects 
that can be attended to as well later—for example, the matters 
treated in the proposed third and fourth amendments. As for 
the elective franchise, get a legislature first and let it attend to 
that. Make no more amendments than are necessary to insure 
a free government. 29 

It would be hardly an overstatement to say that never did a 
political speech bring more decisive results. Before it, the op¬ 
position that, the same afternoon, had seemed so powerful, im¬ 
mediately dissolved and disappeared and the radical plan, with 
the modifications suggested by the governor, was put through 
29 Ibid., January 14. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 169 

with little further deliberation. As a partial explanation of this 
remarkable occurrence, it must be remembered that it was not 
all shades of loyal opinion in the state that Johnson succeeded 
so signally in blending into a harmonious background for his 
policy. The convention consisted only of “unconditionals,” 
ostensibly administration men; all others had been eliminated 
from participation in the work of reorganization by a gradual 
process culminating in the iron-clad oath of September, 1864, 
and the rigid requirements for delegates which the convention 
itself prescribed. All the members were in reality radical, in the 
sense that they were the foes of slavery and of the old system of 
government in the state. With hardly an exception, all were in 
favor of restoration by the convention method. The agitation 
for committing the task to a legislature, so vigorous in the pre¬ 
ceding summer, had dwindled to a few voices, to whom little 
heed was now given. No irreconcilable differences existed 
among the delegates as to the form the new government should 
take. Indeed, the Hood party might more properly be called 
legalists or constitutionalists than moderates. Their only de¬ 
termined attack was made upon the representative character and 
constitutional status of the convention, and to meet this John¬ 
son directed all his powers of persuasion. To make it the single 
issue, he cleverly avoided disputes on vexed questions, not im¬ 
mediately essential, proposed in the third and fourth amend¬ 
ments, by suggesting their postponement. For the legality of 
the convention’s action he practically assumed personal respon¬ 
sibility by his speech, thus lifting a load from the shoulders of 
scrupulous delegates; and by emphasizing his favorite doctrine 
of paramount popular sovereignty, exercised to restore rather 
than to destroy the government, he sought to contradistinguish 
this action from that of the secessionists in 1861. 

After this speech, the result was certain. Many delegates de¬ 
parted for their homes, realizing that the remaining proceedings 
would be merely perfunctory. The next day, the business com¬ 
mittee withdrew its report and returned it with the third and 
fourth amendments stricken out. 30 The last attempt of the 
moderates to gain recognition for their views—a resolution 31 by 

90 Ibid., January 15. 

81 Ibid. 


170 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Colonel Butler that the convention would exceed its powers by 
acting in accordance with the report—failed by a vote of 113 
to 161, all that remained of the original five hundred odd dele¬ 
gates. The report was then adopted. 32 

Two constitutional amendments, therefore, were to be sub¬ 
mitted to the people, providing for the abolition of slavery and 
prohibiting the legislature from reviving it. The radical 
schedule, 33 also approved, abrogated a section of the state consti¬ 
tution in conflict with the new amendments, declared unconsti¬ 
tutional and void the declaration of independence and ordinance 
of separation of May 6 and the convention and military league 
with the Confederacy of May 7, 1861, as well as all laws of the 
secessionist legislature and acts done in pursuance of them, in¬ 
cluding the issue of state bonds, notes of the Bank of Tennessee 
and its branches, and all debts created in the name of the state 
by their authority; forbade any subsequent legislature to author¬ 
ize the payment of such debts or the redemption of such notes; 
suspended the statute of limitations from May 6, 1861, until 
the legislature should restore it; authorized attachments of prop¬ 
erty and collection of judgments in suits for torts or upon con¬ 
tracts, without personal service of process upon the defendant, 
until the legislature should make other regulations; ratified all 
civil and military appointments of Governor Johnson and pro¬ 
vided for their continuance until the election or appointment of 
their successors under the laws and constitution of the state and 
of the United States. “The people” were to be summoned to 
vote on both the amendments and the schedule on the ensuing 
22d of February and, if they approved them, an election for 
governor and members of the legislature was to follow on the 
4th of March, the legislature to be voted for by general ticket 
upon practically the old basis of representation. The officers 
thus chosen were to serve until legally supplanted at the regular 
biennial election in 1867. Changes in the laws regulating the 
qualifications for voters and other modifications of the elective 
franchise, at first proposed for incorporation in the constitution, 
were left to the general assembly. 


32 Ibid. 

33 Ibid. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 171 

It remained to provide the machinery for launching the new 
system. This was done in a series of resolutions 34 passed by 
the convention. The defences which had safeguarded the admin¬ 
istration party in November were again erected around the ballot- 
box for both the vote on the amendments and the first election 
in March. The voters in each case, except those known to the 
judges of the election as unconditional Union men, were required 
to take the governor’s iron-clad oath. The name of each voter 
must be written on the back of his ticket, and the tickets filed 
with the clerks of the county courts for future reference. Thus, 
any man who ventured to oppose the dominant party must count 
on being known and reaping the consequences of implied dis¬ 
loyalty. Qualified voters might cast their ballots in any county 
of the state, or, if in the military service, wherever they might 
happen to be on election day; and, for the soldiers, military com¬ 
manders and superintendents of hospitals were empowered to 
hold elections. Returns were to be made to the secretary of 
state and the result declared by proclamation of the governor. 

The convention then vote dr to nominate a candidate for gov¬ 
ernor and to commit the naming of candidates for the legislature 
and officers of elections to the delegates, for their respective dis¬ 
tricts. If, however, the “Union people” of any district preferred 
another candidate, they were to be free to substitute him for 
the one selected by the delegates. The state executive committee 
was authorized to fill all vacancies in the list of nominees. 35 

The nomination of the gubernatorial candidate was the last 
exciting episode of a dramatic event. For months the administra¬ 
tion and its supporting newspapers had made no secret of their 
preference for Brownlow, “the fighting parson,” a popular hero 
and, even more than Johnson, the most striking individual figure 
in the state. Of qualifications for the office he had almost none, 
save his intense, unswerving, self-sacrificing loyalty to the Union. 
As editor of the Knoxville Whig, the organ of ultra-anti-secession 
radicalism, he had brought down upon himself and his family 
the vengeance of the Confederates. Something of the sanctified 
celebrity of the martyr clung about him and glows with a shade 

34 Nashville Times and Union, January 16. 

85 Ibid. 


172 ANDREW JOHNSON 

too vivid of complacency in the pages of “Parson Brownlow’s 
Book,” in which he recounts his sufferings and draws a highly 
colored picture of Confederate atrocities. Intense, bitter, utterly 
narrow-minded as he was, extravagance in action and expression 
was a necessary outlet for his fierce passions, and his picturesque 
personality and violent diatribes were the most effective drawing- 
cards at all Union meetings in Tennessee. He never failed to 
excite and to amuse; in him the arts of the demagogue were 
astonishingly mingled with the purest, sincerest, most intolerable 
fanaticism. 

No opposition to Brownlow appeared, and he was chosen by 
acclamation. In his brief speech of acceptance 36 he promised 
an administration of “deeds and acts,” and concluded: “God 
being my helper, if you will send up a legislature to reorganize 
the militia and pass other necessary laws, I will put an end to 
this infernal system of guerilla fighting in the state, in East, Mid¬ 
dle and Western Tennessee, if we have to shoot and hang every 
man concerned.” The convention then wound up its business 
with resolutions 37 requesting the president to appoint Brownlow 
a brigadier-general and assign him to duty as military governor 
for the period between Governor Johnson’s retirement and .the 
March election, urging the governor and the department com¬ 
manders to send Tennessee troops to guard the ballot-box during 
the approaching canvass and election and protect the loyal people 
after the election, and providing for the appointment by the presi¬ 
dent of the convention of a committee of three from the three 
divisions of the state to proclaim Tennessee no longer in insur¬ 
rection against the national government. 

“Thank God that the tyrant’s rod has been broken,” exclaimed 
Johnson, in his dispatch of the 13th, announcing the result to 
Lincoln. “Without some reverse of arms, the state will be re¬ 
deemed and the foul blot of slavery erased from her escutcheon. 
I hope that Tennessee will not be included in the bill now before 
Congress and be made an exception if the bill passes. All is 
now working well, and if Tennessee is now left alone, (she) 

38 Proceedings of the Liberty and Union Convention in Nashville, Ten¬ 
nessee, on the 9th of January, 1865 (pamphlet, Library of Congress). 

m Nashville Dispatch, January 15. 



MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 173 

will soon resume all the functions of a state according to the 
genius and theory of the government.” 38 

The result of the popular vote, under the elaborate restrictions 
imposed, was insured from the beginning. On the 226. of Feb¬ 
ruary, the amendments and schedule proposed by the convention 
were ratified 'by a vote of 25,293 to 48. 39 More than 3,000 votes 
were by soldiers. Only twenty-seven counties in the state sent in 
returns, and Shelby county was the sole participant from West 
Tennessee. The feeling in that section was influenced unfavor¬ 
ably by the friction which had attended the enrollment of the 
militia and probably also by the enforcement of General Canby’s 
order for a draft of one man in seven on the 15th. 40 An unsuc¬ 
cessful effort had been made by those apprehensive of the effect 
of the draft to have it postponed until after the election. A 
meeting called at Memphis to ratify the proceedings of the con¬ 
stitutional convention had, to the consternation of its sponsors, 
fallen under the. domination of the “copperheads,” who carried 
resolutions denouncing the convention’s proceedings and setting 
aside its nominations,—requiring a subsequent radical meeting 
to undo its work. 41 The guerillas were still showing intermittent 
activity in East Tennessee and frightened many citizens into re¬ 
maining away from the polls. 

Although the result was far from an unqualified success, the 
president’s ten per cent. requirement was more than complied 
with. At last, after three years of incessant effort, Johnson’s 
work in Tennessee was done. In a few days he was to leave the 
state to take up his new duties in Washington, and his procla¬ 
mation 42 of the 25th, announcing the people’s verdict on his 
p] an —for his it essentially was—and declaring the amendments 
a part of the constitution, is of the nature of a valedictory. 

“For nearly three years,” he said, “in the midst of dangers and 
difficulties the most complicated and perplexing, I have earnestly 
labored to restore the state to its former proud position in the 

38 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, p. 1050. 

139 !'Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 769. 

40 J. P., vol. lvi,—2167,—2193; lvii,—2302; Nashville Times and Union, 
February 16. 

41 J. P., vol. lvii,—2302. 

43 Nashville Times and Union, February 17. 


174 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


Union. My constant effort has been to save it, not to destroy it; 
but the rebellious sentiment of the people often interposed ob¬ 
stacles which had to be overcome by military power. The task 
was painful, but the duty has been performed, and the result 
has passed into history. Time, I am happy to say, has greatly 
calmed the passions of the people, and experience restored them 
to reason. The folly of destroying their government and sacri¬ 
ficing their sons to gratify the mad ambition of political leaders 
needs no longer to be told to the laboring masses. The wasted 
estates, ruined and dilapidated farms, vacant seats around the 
hearthstone, prostrate business, and even life itself, everywhere 
proclaim it in language not to be misunderstood. 

“But all is not lost. A new era dawns upon the people of 
Tennessee. They enter upon a career guided by reason, law, 
order, and reverence. The reign of brute force and personal 
violence has passed away forever. By their own solemn act at 
the ballot-box, the shackles have been formally stricken from the 
limbs of more than 275,000 slaves in the state. The unjust dis¬ 
tinctions in society, fostered by an arrogant aristocracy, based 
upon human bondage, have been overthrown, and our whole 
social system reconstructed on the basis of honest industry and 
personal worth. Labor shall now receive its merited reward, and 
honesty, energy, and enterprise their just appreciation. Capital, 
heretofore timid and distrustful of success, may now confidently 
seek remunerative and profitable investments in the state. Public 
schools and colleges begin anew their work of instruction upon a 
broader and more enduring basis. The foundations of society, 
under the change in the constitution, are in harmony with the 
principles of free government and the National Union; and if 
the people are true to themselves, true to the state, and loyal to 
the Federal government, they will rapidly overcome the calami¬ 
ties of the war, and raise the state to a power and grandeur not 
heretofore even anticipated. Many of its vast resources lie un¬ 
discovered, and it requires intelligent enterprise and free labor 
alone to develop them and clothe the state with a richness and 
beauty surpassed by none of her sisters.” 

The state election followed on the 4th of March. The vote 
was even smaller than that on the amendments, Brownlow and 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 175 


the convention ticket receiving 23,352 against 35 scattering. 43 On 
the 3d of April, the legislature met at Nashville, and, on the 5th, 
it ratified the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution 
and proceeded to reorganize the state government and elect 
United States senators. 44 But these events and the subsequent 
troubled history of Tennessee are beyond the scope of this ac¬ 
count, for Governor Johnson had already resigned his office and 
left the state. The president had not bestowed his mantle on 
Brownlow, as the convention had requested, but permitted Secre¬ 
tary of State East to perform the gubernatorial functions until 
the new civil officers were qualified. 

43 Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, pp, 767-769. 

“Ibid. 


CHAPTER X 


A Governor-of-all-Work 

A connected account of the reconstruction of Tennessee—the 
work for which Johnson’s office was originally created and to 
which all his diversified activities were incidental—has postponed 
until now the treatment of several subsidiary matters which oc¬ 
cupied his attention in the meantime. 

Among the many functions of the governor requiring immedi¬ 
ate exercise, the military were by far the most important. Real¬ 
izing this, the president had conferred upon him the rank of 
brigadier-general, authorized him to call upon the military com¬ 
manders for assistance in carrying out his orders, and provided 
for a “governor’s guard” to be under his own immediate and 
exclusive command . 1 

At first, as has already been observed, the respective authority 
of the governor and the generals was not clearly understood, and 
led to serious complications under Buell and Rosecrans. That 

1 Johnson’s instructions, accompanying his commission, were as fol¬ 
lows : “Sir: The commission you have received expresses on its face 
the nature and extent of the duties and power devolved on you by the 
appointment as military governor of Tennessee. Instructions have been 

'given to Major-General - to aid you in the performance of your 

duty and the extent of your authority. He has also been instructed to 
detail an adequate military force for the special purpose of a governor’s 
guard and to act under your directions. It is obvious to you that the 
great purpose of your appointment is to reestablish the authority of the 
Federal government in the state of Tennessee and provide the means 
of maintaining peace and security to the loyal inhabitants of that state 
until they shall be able to establish a civil government. Upon your 
wisdom and energetic action much will depend in accomplishing the 
result. It is not deemed necessary to give any specific instructions, but 
rather to confide in your sound discretion to adopt such measures as 
circumstances may demand. Specific instructions will be given when 
requested. You may rely upon the perfect confidence and full support 
of the department in the performance of your duties." J. P., vol. xvi, 
3688; O. R., series i, vol. ix, p. 396; ibid., series iii, vol. ii, p. 106. 



MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


17 ? 


there was less trouble afterwards is doubtless to be explained 
not so much by the absence of causes of dissension as by the 
character of the officers appointed and the lesson they had drawn 
from the experience of their predecessors, that the governor was 
a power to be reckoned with and conciliated. Thomas, who suc¬ 
ceeded Rosecrans, had promptly won Johnson’s enthusiastic ad¬ 
miration and confidence by his ability, pure patriotism, and 
single-minded devotion to duty, and had been earnestly recom¬ 
mended by him for the command to which he was finally as¬ 
signed. He, like Johnson, was a Southern loyalist; his views on 
reconstruction were much the same; and his equable temper and 
indisposition to quarrel or trespass on another’s province stood 
him in good stead in Tennessee. The post commanders at Nash¬ 
ville also took on wisdom. As for the subordinate military offi¬ 
cers, the principal source of friction was removed when John¬ 
son was authorized to dictate the appointment of the provost- 
marshal at Nashville, and those who remembered the fate of 
Matthews, Greene and Truesdail trod warily under the gover¬ 
nor’s eye. Whatever embarrassments he experienced in the late 
years of the war came from distant sections, like Memphis, where 
the civil government existed only sporadically, under military 
regulations of the general; and such incidents were few and 
comparatively unimportant and were speedily remedied or ex¬ 
plained away when he complained of them. 

Another important duty imposed upon Johnson was the raising 
of Tennessee troops for the Federal army 2 and for the defence 

2 Under the act of July 22, 1861, authorizing the governors of states 
furnishing volunteers to “commission the field staff and company officers, 
requisite for said volunteers” Where, in Southern states, the proper 
authorities “fail or refuse” to commission the officers, the president is 
authorized to do so. More detailed regulations were provided in the 
form of general orders from the war department, viz.: 

General Order No. 18, 1862: Breaking up all independent organizations 
and ordering their members to report to the governors of their states 
for commissions. 

General Order No. 75, 1862: Providing that all volunteer regiments 
shall be under the exclusive control of the governors of their states until 
their muster rolls are complete, when they shall be mustered into the 
service of the United States. 

General Order No. 48, 1863: Providing that no volunteer officer shall 


178 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


of the state. The supporters of the Union in Tennessee were 
comparatively few, but among them the task was rendered easy 
by the fact that, in the existing condition of the country, Union 
men were actually safer in the army than at home, where those 
not caught in the wide-flung Confederate conscription net fell 
to the tender mercies of the guerillas. 

The governor brought with him authority from Stanton to 
draw on the treasury to the amount of $10,000 for funds to or¬ 
ganize a “home guard” for service in Tennessee, 3 and, by the 
23d of April, he could report two regiments complete and four 
others nearly so. 4 Volunteers were plentiful enough, but many 
insisted on organizing as cavalry, to clear the state of guerillas 
and protect their homes and families—a business for which in¬ 
fantry was practically worthless. The infantry regiments, conse¬ 
quently, did not fill rapidly. This would have been well enough, 
but for the great difficulty of getting horses. The Confederates 
had taken almost every animal of value for military purposes. 
Johnson finally resorted to pressing horses from secession sympa¬ 
thizers, but the supply never came near equalling the demand, 
and some troops attempted for a time to use mares, an experi¬ 
ment which worked badly and was abandoned. 5 The regiment, 
originally infantry, commanded by the governor’s son, Robert, 
was transferred to the cavalry service, and Colonel Robert’s cor¬ 
respondence with his father is the history of a long struggle to 
secure proper horses and equipment. 

On the 28th of June, 1862, Johnson subscribed the invitation 
of the loyal governors to the president to call upon their states 
for all the men necessary to fill up the ranks of the army in the 
field, provide garrisons for captured posts, and speedily crush 
the rebellion, 6 and proceeded promptly to raise the two regiments 
asked for as part of Tennessee’s quota. By the first of July, the 
unrestrained career of Forrest and Morgan and the cutting of 

be mustered into the service of the United States until he shall exhibit a 
commission from the governor of the state to which the organization 
into which he desires to be mustered belongs. J. P., vol. xxx, 6764. 
a J. P., vol. xvi, 3967. 

* 0 . R., series i, vol. x, part ii, p. in. 

B J. P., vol. xxiv, 5268. 

fl 0 . R., series iii, vol. ii, pp. 180, 187, 208. 


179 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 

the railroad communications threatened Nashville with complete 
isolation. Johnson was thoroughly alarmed, and set himself with 
characteristic energy to help organize the defence. On the 14th, 
the rumor gained currency that the Confederates were marching 
on the city. A Union meeting was hurriedly announced and 
Johnson delivered a stirring speech, calling on the citizens to 
enroll and promising them arms, while those who should serve a 
month were to receive regular pay. In similar crises throughout 
the year, it was the governor who spurred the flagging zeal of 
others with his restless energy. 

Meanwhile, Halleck in the west and Morgan in East Tennessee 
were begging for cavalry. Johnson’s response was prompt. His 
demands on Washington brought him, on the 1st of August, 
full authority to raise any amount of cavalry and infantry needed 
for service in Tennessee. 7 The appointment of the officers, too, 
was practically in his hands. Operations within the state, he 
constantly urged, should be, as far as possible, in charge of 
Tennessee officers; and he did not hesitate to request the substi¬ 
tution of ex-Governor Campbell for General Buell as commander 
of the relief expedition into East Tennessee. 8 

In military matters, as in every other respect, the tendency of 
the president was to avail himself more and more of Johnson’s 
proved energy and efficiency. On the 28th of March, 1863, he 
was empowered to raise and muster into the service of the 
United States, for three years or during the war, ten regiments 
of infantry, ten of cavalry, and ten batteries of artillery, the 
officers to be appointed by him and commissioned by the war 
department. Quartermasters and commissaries were instructed 
to issue supplies to these troops upon the governor’s requisition. 9 
The same order contained also the specific authority for raising 
the governor’s guard which had been promised a year before, 
for the purpose of strengthening his authority and performing 
service around Nashville. This force, which might not exceed 
a brigade, was placed under his exclusive command and could 
not be employed without his consent. On April 22d, a regiment 

7 Annual Cyclopedia 1862, p. 598; Nashville Union , July 15, 1862; O. R., 
series iii, vol. ii, p. 208. 

8 0 . R. } series iii, vol. ii, p. 290. 

9 Ibid., series i, vol. xvi, part ii, p. 118. 


i8o 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


of Tennessee infantry was detached from the regular army, 
against the protest of General Rosecrans, to form a nucleus for 
the guard. 10 Henceforth, it was apparent, the governor need 
not depend upon others for carrying out his behests. 

Though laboring faithfully to obtain recruits for Rosecrans, 
Johnson’s more immediate concern was for the succor of the 
loyal people of Tennessee, exposed to the vengeance of the enemy, 
who were sweeping the country in the rear of the Union army. 
To this end he wearied the government with complaints and 
prayers for aid and finally (April) won the consent of the war 
department—recruits from Tennessee now coming in but slowly 
—to enlist men from other states to complete the number he 
required. 11 The work was begun at once, but led to serious 
complications and friction between recruiting officers and gover¬ 
nors, and the order permitting it was revoked in June. 12 

In the autumn of 1863, the need for more soldiers became 
acute. Rosecrans was concentrating every available man at the 
front for the projected winter campaign against Bragg. Even 
prisoners were released on condition of taking service in the 
army. The Confederate cavalry and guerillas were everywhere 
and a large force for guard and garrison duty was essential. 
The places of the veterans withdrawn from this service had 
promptly to be filled by new troops, and in this work the co¬ 
operation of the governor was highly important. Lincoln tele¬ 
graphed him on the 8th of September: “Let me urge that you 
do your utmost to get every man you can, black and white, under 
arms at the very earliest moment, to guard roads, bridges, and 
trains, allowing all the better trained soldiers to go forward to 
Rosecrans. Of course I mean for you to act in cooperation with, 
and not independently of, the military authorities.” 13 Authority 
was sent him to raise both troops for the regular army and 
companies of “Union guards” to be organized under Tennessee 
law for twelve months’ service in the state only, and controlled 
directly by the governor. 14 A similar organization had already 

10 J. P., vol. XXX, 6756. 

31 Ibid., vol. xliii, 9412; O. R., series i, vol. xxiii, part ii, p. 308. 

12 J. P., vol. xxix, 6348; vol. xxxi, 6754. 

13 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 823. 

U J- P., vol. xxxiv, 7598. 



MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 181 


been effected by General Hurlbut in West Tennessee. 15 By the 
middle of October, Johnson was able to report good success in 
his undertaking. The men obtained, he said, were well adapted 
for service against the guerillas, as they came from the country 
where they were numerous and knew how to meet them. 16 Still, 
the scheme was not without its imperfections. Officers engaged 
in recruiting regular three-year regiments complained that the 
opportunity offered for shorter service drew many men away 
from them. It was contended that the “home guards,” though 
possibly suited to warfare with small bands of Indians, were 
useless against the strong and capably led forces of Forrest and 
Morgan. Arms furnished them would only be captured and sent 
South, and their feeble efforts would bring a worse vengeance 
upon the country. They themselves were insubordinate and dis¬ 
posed to commit outrages on the people they were supposed to 
defend, and, in general, might be expected to do far more harm 
than good. 17 Much of this criticism was just, but the protection 
furnished by the “home guards” was all that could be afforded 
the citizens during the critical winter of 1863-64, and doubtless 
saved them from a worse fate than actually befell them. And 
much more important and valuable were their services in guard¬ 
ing the lines of communication of the army. 

In his telegram of the 8th of September, 18 Lincoln had urged 
the arming of black as well as white soldiers. This suggestion, 
of course, was only in consonance with his general plan of utiliz¬ 
ing the slaves to increase the resources of the North, but, in 
Tennessee and the other border states, this policy was attended 
by peculiar difficulties. The same considerations which sug¬ 
gested the exemption of Tennessee from the emancipation proc¬ 
lamation counselled a tender regard for the feelings and property 
of loyal and quasi-loyal slave-owners in the state. The military 
crisis, however, was decisive in the matter, and determined the 
president to organize the blacks, with proper safeguards for 
Union men. As early as the 26th of March, he had written to 
Johnson: “I am told that you have at least thought of raising 

“Nashville Union, September 26. 

“O. R., series i, vol. xxx, part iv, p. 308. 

17 J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7582; vol. li, -1074. 

18 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 823. 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


182 

a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs 
no specific thing so much as some man of your ability and posi¬ 
tion to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean 
that of an eminent citizen of a slave state and himself a slave¬ 
holder. The colored population is the great available, and yet 
unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of 
50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the 
Mississippi would end the rebellion at once. And who doubts 
that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? 
If you have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the 
thought.” 19 

To facilitate this work, the war department, in September, 
commissioned Major George L. Stearns assistant adjutant-general 
and sent him to Tennessee to report to Rosecrans and Johnson 
and take charge of the organization of colored troops. He was 
empowered to enlist all free negroes and slaves of disloyal 
masters. Slaves of loyal citizens might be taken with their 
masters’ consent, in which case the owners were to be given 
descriptive lists of their negroes enlisted, entitling them to com¬ 
pensation “not to exceed the sum authorized by law as bounties 
for volunteer service.” All negroes entering the army were to 
be free at the expiration of their term of enlistment. 20 

No sooner had Major Stearns reached Nashville, than he ex¬ 
cited the hostility of both Johnson and other “influential loyal 
Tennesseeans” opposed to making soldiers of the negroes. The 
governor’s animosity apparently arose from a mistaken notion 
of Stearns’ mission, which he assumed was to take the control 
of the enlistments out of his hands. He remonstrated to Stanton 
that the major’s plans seriously interfered with his own. He 
had proposed first to employ the newly organized negroes on the 
government works, “indispensable to sustain the rear of General 
Rosecrans’ army,” and later to convert them into soldiers, while 
Stearns wished to place them at once in military camps. “All 
the negroes,” he observed, “will quit work when they can go 
into camp and do nothing.” Persons from other states were 
anxious to raise colored regiments simply for the sake of getting 

u Ibid., p. 103. 

* Ibid., p. 816. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 183 

commands in them: they neither knew nor cared anything about 
the condition of the negro or the effect their action would have 
on public opinion and the restoration of the Union in Tennessee. 
“It is exceedingly important/’ he concluded, “for this question 
to be handled in such a way as will do the least injury in forming 
a correct public judgment at this time. We hope, therefore, that 
the organization of negro regiments in Tennessee will be left 
to the general commanding the department and the military 
governor.’’ 21 

Stanton was prompt with reassurances. Major Stearns came 
to Tennessee, he said, as the subordinate of Rosecrans and 
Johnson, to aid them and to act under their directions, and 
might be relieved of his office by them at any time. “Upon your 
judgment in matters relating to the state of which you are gover¬ 
nor,” he assured Johnson, “the department relies in respect to 
whatever relates to the people, whether white or black, bond or 
free.” No officers of colored troops would be appointed except 
in accordance with the governor’s views. 22 Stearns was instructed 
to leave Nashville rather than become involved in dissension with 
Johnson ; 23 but he was a tactful and efficient officer, and succeeded 
in dispelling misunderstandings, gained the latter’s confidence, 
and cooperated harmoniously with him thereafter. 

Military commanders who presumed to trench on the gover¬ 
nor’s preserves got nothing but censure from Washington. To 
a complaint from Captain Dickson, the assistant adjutant-general 
at Nashville, the reply came: “It is not perceived what right the 
military authorities have to interfere with those questions which 
properly belong to the jurisdiction of General Johnson,” and the 
secretary of war “directs you and all others in the military service 
to abstain from interfering with these questions without specific 
authority from this department, and to leave them entirely to the 
adjudication of Governor Johnson, whose authority to dispose 
of them is ample, and in whose discretion and judgment the de¬ 
partment has full confidence.” 24 

The recruiting of the colored regiments went forward with 

21 (Ibid., p. 819; J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7475. 

23 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 822 ; J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7481. 

28 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 823; J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7486. 

34 O. R., series i, vol. xxx, part iii, p. 701. 


184 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


decided success. Since the outbreak of the war, the condition 
of the negroes in Tennessee had been anything but an enviable 
one. 25 The devastation of the plantations and the flight of their 
masters had turned great numbers of them loose with little re¬ 
straint and less prospect of supporting themselves by labor, and 
they became gradually more destitute and miserable. Many had 
been rounded up by the government to labor on the fortifications 
and other public works, but such employment was irregular and 
open to abuses. Officers, with no authority to do so, impressed 
them for military and other service, kept them under strict sur¬ 
veillance to prevent desertion, often treated them harshly, and 
paid them nothing. The opportunity to change to a regular or¬ 
ganization, affording them protection, consideration, pay and 
sustenance could not but appeal to them. Agents, white and 
colored, were sent through the state to work upon them through 
public meetings and personal interviews. To overcome the op¬ 
position of loyal slave owners, Johnson urged on the president 
(September 23) that they be given $300. in addition to the 
bounty for each slave enlisted, the slave to receive all other pay. 
“If a white man pays his $300. for a substitute, 1 ” he said, “he need 
not care whether he is white or black/’ 26 

Complete rules covering negro enlistments in Maryland, Mis¬ 
souri, and Tennessee were promulgated as general orders by the 
war department on the 3d of October. 27 Slaves were to be 
classified and treated according to the loyalty of their owners, as 
in Major Stearns’ original instructions. For every slave enlisted 
with the consent of his owner, the latter received a certificate 
entitling him to compensation, not exceeding $300., for the slave’s 
services, upon proving his title and filing a valid deed of manu¬ 
mission and release. Any loyal owner who claimed upon oath 
that his slave had been enlisted without his consent could inspect 
the enlisted men for the purpose of identifying his property, 
and, if necessity required the retention of the slave, the owner 
was to receive compensation. For Tennessee, Johnson was em¬ 
powered to modify these orders “by such regulations as he may 
establish to promote enlistments, subject to the approval of the 

25 Stearns’ report to Stanton, O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 840. 

28 Ibid., p. 837; J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7524. 

2 ‘ O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 860. For Lincoln’s views see ibid., p. 856. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 185 

war department.” 28 These orders had a good effect. Many 
slave-owners, it was officially stated, came to Stearns’ office and 
declared themselves in favor of emancipation. 29 Colonel R. D. 
Mussey, in his report to the war department in October, 1864, 
declared that a revolution in public opinion had taken place and 
he then knew of no prominent loyal Tennesseean who opposed 
the enlistment of negroes. 30 

On the 21 st of October, Johnson and Stearns were authorized 
to appoint any persons they deemed suitable for “raising, organ¬ 
izing, and commanding colored troops” in Tennessee, whether 
they had complied with the regular formalities or not. 31 Such 
appointments had previously required the sanction of Rosecrans, 
but the confusion, the interruption of communications, and the 
pressing demands on the general, following the defeat at Chick- 
amauga, prevented him from attending promptly to business of 
this sort. 32 

The result of Stearns’ labors was six regular negro regiments 
and two garrison and hospital regiments. 33 “The general senti¬ 
ments of the people and those of the army with whom these 
regiments have been brought in contact is favorable to them,” 
reports Colonel Mussey, the chief superintendent of contrabands. 
“The material has been found plastic to a degree, the men all 
appear eager to learn and willing to do their duty, and, as a 
rule, the officers have been good. . . . My experience in this 
work convinces me that these regiments can be made for many 
duties superior to white regiments. As guards they are remark¬ 
ably faithful. . . . For raiders in the enemy’s country these 
colored troops will prove superior. They are good riders, have 
quicker eyes at night than white, and know all the byways.” 34 
This was undoubtedly the general opinion, at least among Union 
men. The good conduct and efficiency of the negro soldiers 
rapidly moderated the prejudice against them. The Union con- 


28 Ibid., p. 896; J. P., vol. xxxiv, 7617. 

29 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, pp. 762-774. 

30 Ibid. 

31 Ibid., vol. iii, p. 908. 

32 Ibid., vol. iv, p. 764; J. P., vol. xxxv, 7766. 

33 O. R., series, iii, vol. iv, pp. 762-774. 

34 Ibid. 


186 ANDREW JOHNSON 

vention of September, 1864, called black as well as white militia 
to the defence of the state. 

During the summer of 1864, East Tennessee demanded John¬ 
son’s particular attention. After Longstreet’s retreat into Vir¬ 
ginia in the spring, the bands of Wheeler and Morgan continued 
to operate there. From Knoxville a strong appeal, 35 signed by 
Brownlow and other citizens, reached Johnson in July. The 
rebels, they said, were rapidly repairing the railroad, preparing 
to carry South all the grain and live-stock, and murdering the 
Union men. A force must be sent at once to save them. “If 
this is not done before the rebels have run off their supplies, then 
we ask, in mercy to the citizens, that no troops of ours come 
afterwards, to eat out what little may be left.” 

This was a project with which Johnson was in full sympathy. 
Having shared the early sufferings of his neighbors, he had since 
experienced scarcely less anguish from his inability to avert 
their later disasters. Now he determined to dispatch the “gover¬ 
nor’s guard” to their relief. That body had developed into a 
considerable force under the command of General Alvin C. 
Gillem, Johnson’s protege and trusted friend. On the first of 
August, he received orders 36 to kill or drive out all marauders in 
East Tennessee, pursuing them, if necessary, beyond the limits of 
the state, and then to direct his efforts to aiding the civil authori¬ 
ties in restoring law and order, according to instructions from 
the governor’s office. He was given command also of all the 
organized regiments being raised in East Tennessee to serve a 
year or longer, and empowered to raise others if he needed them. 

Although Johnson’s motives in undertaking such a movement 
were unexceptionable, his judgment deserved criticism. A com¬ 
paratively small expedition, operating in an exposed position 
and from a distant base, required for its success at least the 
prompt and hearty support of the regular army in East Ten¬ 
nessee and, indeed, should have been under the same command 
as that army and working to the same purpose. Johnson himself 
was not wholly blind to so evident a fact. Though unwilling to 
waive a project, of the utility of which he was convinced, to 
suit the plans of another, he did appreciate the necessity of mutual 

38 J. P., vol xlv, -4. 

X W. A. Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, p. 494. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 187 

understanding and harmony, and, to this end, he urged on the 
war department (August 27) the transfer of East Tennessee, 
then a part of the department of the Ohio under Schofield, to the 
department of the Cumberland under Thomas, with whom his 
relations had been especially congenial and for whose ability he 
had a profound respect 37 The change was not made, because, as 
General Sherman explained, both Thomas and Schofield were 
then actively campaigning and had no time to attend to the 
details. 38 

At first, Gillem met with considerable success, penetrating 
northward to Bull’s Gap, scattering the Confederate bands, and 
taking many prisoners. His most notable achievement was on 
the 4th of September, when the force of the famous John 
Morgan—than whom only Forrest inspired more terror in the 
state—was surprised and routed, Morgan himself being among 
the slain. 

By the middle of October, however, it was apparent that this 
career of easy victories was soon to end. The plan of the Con¬ 
federates for their last attempt to overrun the state contemplated 
the invasion of East Tennessee by Breckenridge. Schofield, who 
was with Thomas, watching Hood in the south, expected this and 
saw the danger of divided councils. To avert it, he directed 
General Ammen, who commanded the regular troops at Knox¬ 
ville, to assume command of Gillem’s force. He sought to win 
Johnson’s assent to this arrangement by urging that the present 
emergency demanded concerted action, and that an order from 
the governor, withdrawing his guard from Ammen, would be 
respected at any time. 39 Johnson would have none of such an 
explanation and the guard was again detached. Schofield com¬ 
plained to Thomas that he could learn nothing of the governor’s 
intentions and was perplexed about assigning troops to East 
Tennessee, because he did not know how long it was proposed 
to leave Gillem there. 40 

The result was obvious. Ammen was probably irritated by 
the conflicting orders and affronted by Gillem’s refusal to serve 

37 O. R., series i, vol. xxxix, part ii, p. 307. 

38 Ibid., vol. xxxviii, part ii, p. 717. 

39 J. P., vol. Ii, -958. 

40 O. R., series i, vol. xlv, part i, p. 884; J. P., vol. Hi, -1235. 


188 ANDREW JOHNSON 

under him, and, from that time, showed him but scant consider¬ 
ation. Recrimination broke out between them, and continued 
after Breckenridge entered the state. Reluctant to surrender the 
advantages he had gained and trusting to reinforcements, Gillem 
delayed too long in the face of a vastly superior force. When he 
finally realized that the enemy was gaining his rear, he began a 
rapid retreat on Knoxville, meanwhile sending frantic appeals to 
Ammen for assistance; but, for whatever reason, assistance did 
not come. On the 13th of November, his brigade ran into the 
Confederate ambush that was set for it between Russellville and 
Morristown and was utterly routed and driven in confusion to 
Knoxville. 41 As Thomas observed, another disaster was to be 
attributed to want of cooperation. 42 Gillem reorganized his 
guard, but it accomplished nothing of particular importance 
thereafter. 

Sherman’s march from Atlanta to the sea was the signal for a 
renewed outbreak of cavalry and guerilla activity in Tennessee, 
calculated to impede and embarrass him and, at the best, cut his 
communications and compel him to retreat. Deprived of almost 
all the regular troops, who were needed at the front, the governor 
and the military commanders remaining in Tennessee were com¬ 
pelled to develop other instruments of defence. For this pur¬ 
pose it was determined to enroll the state militia. The idea was 
not a new one. In the preceding November, at Memphis, Sher¬ 
man, then commanding the department of the Tennessee, had di¬ 
rected the impressment of a sufficient number of men to fill the 
existing regiments and batteries to their maximum, such men to 
receive regular pay if they enlisted for three years or the war; 
otherwise, to be provided simply with food and rations and a cer¬ 
tificate of service entitling them to a compensation to be de¬ 
termined later, when the need for them was past. 43 On various 
occasions, the citizens of Nashville and other places had been 
summoned to defend their homes when an attack seemed im¬ 
minent. As early as July, Bingham, of Memphis, had urged the 
enrollment of the militia throughout the state. 44 Johnson him- 

41 J. P., vol. Hi, -1254, 1260, -1210. 

42 O. R., series i, vol. xxxix, part ii, p. 886. 

43 Ibid., vol. xxxi, part iii, p. 160. 

44 J. P., vol. xlv, 9833. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 189 

self appreciated the advantages of such a plan and, in August, 
had drawn up a proclamation putting it in effect, but apparently 
preferred not to publish it without some previous popular sanc¬ 
tion. 45 The September convention at Nashville, which served 
as the vehicle for his will in other respects, gratified him in this 
also. A resolution, 46 adopted on the 7th, declared for the en¬ 
rollment and drill of the militia “to protect the citizens from law¬ 
less violence, pillage and bloodshed.” The proclamation 47 
followed the next day. “Whereas the militia of the state con¬ 
stitutes the military power, which must; when necessary, sustain 
the civil in the suppression of crime and punishment of evil 
doers,” all able-bodied males, white and colored, between eighteen 
and fifty years of age, except those afterwards exempted, are to 
be enrolled. The magistrates in the rural districts and wards are 
to act as commissioners for this purpose. Any justice of the 
peace who refuses or fails to perform this duty and offers no 
satisfactory excuse for his delinquency is to be sent out of the 
state. 

The announcement of the new policy aroused immense excite¬ 
ment. It was realized at once that its effect would be to force 
the thousands of non-combatants, who had heretofore remained 
in non-committal security and inaction, to declare themselves 
openly for one side or the other. Even the punishment which 
the proclamation held over the heads of reluctant magistrates 
proved insufficient to drive them to face the general resentment. 
Everywhere threats were made that whoever attempted to ex¬ 
ecute the proclamation would be killed. Many justices of the 
peace declared that they preferred deportation to death. 48 Peti¬ 
tioners from Macon county begged Johnson to appoint an army 
officer for the work, as he would be known already as an enemy 
by the guerillas, and so would incur no additional risk. 49 General 
Milroy wrote from Tullahoma that he was experiencing the ut¬ 
most difficulty in ten counties. In districts where there were no 

15 Ibid., vol. xlvii, -307; vol. xlviii, -475,-477. 

"Nashville Dispatch, September 8. 

47 Nashville Union, September 8; Nashville Times and Union, Septem¬ 
ber 13. 

48 J. P., vol. 1 , -840 et passim.; O. R., series i, vol. xxxi, part iii, 
p. 508. 

49 J. P., vol. 1 , -923. 


190 ANDREW JOHNSON 

enrolling officers, he had ordered the county clerks to appoint 
the most active secessionists, who were thus left to choose be¬ 
tween risking the vengeance of the guerillas and being sent in irons 
to Johnson. 50 The difficulties were enhanced by the mistaken im¬ 
pression which prevailed that the enrollment was really a conscrip¬ 
tion or draft to secure men for the regular Union army, and the 
secessionists bestirred themselves to foster this idea. The people 
were told that it had now come to a choice of serving with the 
Confederates or with the “Yanks.” 51 Many recruits were thus 
gained for Forrest and Wheeler, but, as General Thomas ob¬ 
served, the system had the positive merit of distinguishing friends 
from enemies. 52 Meanwhile, the Federal officers were striving 
to convince the people that the proclamation was but a necessary 
measure for protection and order. 

The total number of militia enrolled to the middle of Janu¬ 
ary, 1865, according to the report of the assistant adjutant- 
general of the state, was 18,625 (14,888 white and 3,737 col¬ 
ored). 53 As the only available resource of the government 
against the guerillas and partisan cavalry, their embodiment was 
a necessary measure, but, compelled into the service as they were, 
their loyalty was, of course, open to grave suspicion, and little 
reliance could be placed on them. Certainly their devotion to 
Johnson and reconstruction was slight, if the election of Novem¬ 
ber, 1864, at Memphis may be taken as a criterion. With an 
enrollment of 2400, the total vote was less than 1600. 54 Hints 
were common, especially in West Tennessee, that the system was 
not fairly administered by the officers in charge, who sometimes 
exempted rich anti-Union men from service, but pressed hard 
upon poor loyal laborers. 55 As the war in Tennessee was so soon 
ended, the militia received no serious test. From a Northern 
standpoint, this was doubtless fortunate. 

Besides these important military matters with which Johnson 
had to deal, his responsibility for the raising, organization, and 


60 Ibid., vol. li, -1085. 

61 Ibid. 

ca O. R., series i, vol. xxxix, part ii, p. 382. 

68 Nashville Times, January 16. 

M J. P., vol. lii,-1189. 

66 E.g., J. P., vol. liii, -1409; vol. liv, -1654. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


191 

general oversight of the Tennessee troops involved him in count¬ 
less problems of a more petty, but equally perplexing nature. 
Complaints of officers against the government and against one 
another, and of soldiers against their officers were constant. 
Generals and colonels presented their grievances, demanded in¬ 
creased rank or additions to their commands, requested special 
authority, or assumed it in advance and applied to Johnson to 
validate it. From the Union armies east, west, and south came 
appeals for reinforcements and for cavalry to check the guerillas. 
Horses and arms for Tennessee cavalry were lacking, and the 
governor was looked to to supply them. Soldiers whose pay 
was in arrears expected him to prod the paymaster-general at 
Washington. The East Tennessee troops with Sherman in 
Georgia complained that they were under Northern officers who 
cared nothing for them and were sacrificing them in every en¬ 
gagement, and begged to be allowed to return and protect their 
homes. 56 The post commander at Nashville asked for instruc¬ 
tions as to the treatment of destitute wives of soldiers. The 
executive office was flooded with protests against the insubordi¬ 
nation and the outrages committed by the “governor’s guard.” 57 
And every act of authority by the governor, however justifiable, 
was regarded by the military commanders with a critical and 
jealous eye. 

As a general in the volunteer service, Johnson was required to 
make monthly returns to the adjutant-general’s office and account 
for all supplies and equipment to the quartermaster-general at 
Washington. All vouchers given by his subordinates had to be 
indorsed by him. 58 To expedite the securing of supplies for 
the Tennessee regiments, he was authorized in October, 1863, to 
make all requisitions directly on the ordinance officers and quar¬ 
termasters at Nashville, 59 but this led to perplexities and conflicts 
with the orders of General Grant and, the following January, he 
was directed to apply to the ordinance department at Washing¬ 
ton. 60 This, too, proved to be inconvenient, and a second modi- 

98 .Ibid., vol. xlv, 9758. 

67 O. R., series i, vol. xxxix, part ii, pp. 438 et passim. 

68 J. P., vol. 1 , passim. 

09 Ibid., vol. xxxv, 7658. 

450 Ibid., vol. xxxix, 8597. 


192 ANDREW JOHNSON 

fication, in February, permitted the officers of companies, bat¬ 
talions and regiments, with the governor’s approval, to draw on 
the Nashville depot, on presenting a certificate that the number 
of men for whom stores were required had been mustered into 
the service of the United States. “The point which the depart¬ 
ment wishes to urge,” it was explained, “is that you will use every 
effort to avoid the issue of stores to state officers or troops that 
have not been duly mustered into the service of the United 
States, and at the same time afford every facility in equipping the 
new organizations.” 61 Throughout the war, Johnson had to en¬ 
counter the greatest reluctance of the ordinance authorities to 
fill his requisitions for the Tennessee troops. It was freely as¬ 
serted that his regiments were worthless and that supplies issued 
to them were thrown away. Worse than this, it was said, their 
disorderly, plundering habits made arming them contrary to the 
dictates of humanity. 

According to the official records, Tennessee furnished to the 
Union army on her quota during the war, 31,092 white soldiers. 
To these must be added 20,133 colored troops not credited upon 
the quota, but recruited under direct authority from the general 
government. Probably 7,000 Tennesseeans enlisted in Kentucky 
regiments and were credited to that state. Tennessee’s contribu¬ 
tion to the Confederate army is estimated at nearly 100,000. 
When it is reflected that 140,000 was regarded as a good vote in 
the state just previous to the war, these figures speak volumes 
for the devoted heroism of her sons. A large proportion of the 
white Union soldiers came from a division of the state with a 
male population, between twenty and fifty years of age of only 
45,000. The Union recruits were organized into eight regiments 
of infantry, eight of mounted infantry, twelve of cavalry, and 
five battalions of light artillery. 62 

Partly military, partly civil in its nature, and particularly im¬ 
portant in its bearing upon his reconstruction policy, was John¬ 
son’s authority to control the disposal of Tennessee prisoners. 

61 Ibid., vol. xli, 8918-8923. 

48 O. R., series iii, vol. iv, pp. 73, 1270; Goodspeed, History of 
Tennessee, pp. 477, 497. 


t 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 193 

The Confederate conscript law had borne with great severity on 
Tennessee. Many who preferred the Union were compelled to 
join the Southern army against their will, and not a few deserted 
and found their way within the Federal lines. Others enlisted 
to avoid persecution at home, but were lukewarm or indifferent in 
the service and, when convinced that Tennessee was lost to the 
Confederacy, were anxious to return to their families and their 
old allegiance. These men would be of value in restoring the 
state, and it was obviously to the advantage of the government 
to deal leniently with them. The difficulty lay, of course, in dis¬ 
tinguishing sincere penitents from those who simply desired to 
escape the hardships of prison life, while remaining disloyal at 
heart; but many even of these might eventually be won by con¬ 
siderate treatment. 

From the outset, Johnson’s mail was filled with petitions from 
prisoners, confined mostly at Camp Chase, Ohio, Camp Douglas, 
Illinois, and Camp Morton, Indiana, and from their relatives and 
friends, asking either for permission to take the oath of allegiance 
and return home or for release on parole. Increasingly, as the 
war progressed and the lot of the Confederate soldier became 
harder, the petitioners begged not to be exchanged and sent South, 
but to be retained in confinement until the government prescribed 
terms of pardon for them. A letter from several hundred pris¬ 
oners at Camp Morton is characteristic. 63 They realize, they say, 
that the war is now for the independence of the cotton states, not 
for Tennessee, which the Confederacy has no chance of recover¬ 
ing. They had entered the struggle under the false impression, 
inspired by their leaders, that the North, possessed by “a mad 
fanaticism,” was bent on destroying the “peculiar institution” 
which belonged to Tennessee and the cotton states alike and 
united them in a common interest. They are now convinced, 
however, from conversations with Northern citizens and soldiers 
and from reading Northern newspapers, that a large portion of 
the Northern people are conservative, and never really intended 
to interfere with their institutions at all. And, as loyal Tennes¬ 
seeans, they wish to follow their state back into the Union. “We 
believe,” they conclude, “it is our duty to return to our allegiance 

^J. P., vol. xxi, 4830; vol. xvii, 3826, 3837 et passim. 


194 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


to the Federal government, and be contented to go home and 
remain peaceable citizens, and aid in restoring peace and quiet 
to our distracted state once more, and in removing, as far as we 
can, the false views of our fellow citizens we left behind us.” 

Late in March, 1862, Johnson sent C. F. Trigg to Camp Chase 
to confer with the prisoners, as a preliminary to interceding with 
the government for them. Trigg found many anxious to take 
the oath, though the majority held that their honor was involved 
in a previous oath to the Confederacy and asked to be paroled, 
pending a possible exchange. These latter, Trigg thought, had 
best remain harmless in prison, since they had experienced no 
change of heart. 64 

Johnson’s active interest in the matter led Lincoln (June 4) 
to ask him directly whether he wished to control the whole busi¬ 
ness of releasing Tennessee prisoners. 65 The governor responded 
promptly in the affirmative. I believe, he said, that “we can 
prescribe such terms of release and so dispose of the question as 
to exert a powerful influence throughout the state in our favor 
and to a great extent make secessionists dependent upon Union 
influence.” 66 The desired control was not immediately granted, 
because, as Stanton explained, conditions were not yet ripe for 
the exercise of clemency; but, on the 4th of August, the gover¬ 
nor was empowered to appoint commissioners to examine the 
prisoners to determine the merits of each case and the terms on 
which releases ought to be granted. 67 Those who expressed an 
anxious desire to return to their allegiance, took the oath, and 
gave bond for its faithful observance might be set free. 68 John¬ 
son named General (ex-Governor) W. B. Campbell as commis¬ 
sioner, and many releases were arranged for. 

On the 10th of July, 1863, the secretary of war directed that 
Confederate prisoners who had been impressed into the service 
and desired to join the Union army in good faith might be per¬ 
mitted to do so, on taking the oath of allegiance. 69 At first each 

M Ibid., vol. xvii, 3883. 

68 Lincoln’s Complete Works, vol. vii, p. 212. 

99 J. P., vol. XX, 4607. 

91 Ibid., 4638; vol. xxiv, 5330. 

“Nashville Union , August 10. 

69 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 482; J. P., vol. xxxii, 7148. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 195 

case was referred separately to Washington, but, on the repre¬ 
sentation of Rosecrans that this elaborate process interfered with 
the enlistments, particularly of the prisoners taken at Vicksburg, 
that formality was dispensed with, and the work confided to the 
discretion of Rosecrans and Johnson, with the simple require¬ 
ments that care be taken so to distribute such recruits as to keep 
them under “Union forces and sentiment” and that descriptive 
lists of them be filed at Rosecrans’ headquarters. 70 

From the summer of 1863 until almost the end of the war, 
exchange of prisoners was, with few exceptions, discontinued. 
Johnson was thereby somewhat relieved from a heavy responsi¬ 
bility, though he still made recommendations for discharges, 
which were placed on file, pending a possible change of policy. 

The unexpected prolongation and hardships of the war and 
the ill success of the Confederate forces in Tennessee brought an 
increasing number of desertions from their ranks to the Union 
army. Rosecrans and Johnson, on authority from Stanton, 
adopted the practice of enlisting deserters in the Tennessee regi¬ 
ments. Thomas, who succeeded to the command in October, 
1863, reversed this policy. His opinion, confirmed by representa¬ 
tions from his subordinates, was that such men were not depend¬ 
able and that the enemy were taking advantage of this easy 
means of slipping spies into his army. By his direction, all 
deserters were thereafter to be sent north of the Ohio river, to 
remain during the war. 71 

This order caused serious hardship. In January, 1864, the 
provost-marshal at Jeffersonville, Indiana, wrote to Johnson 72 that 
hundreds of Tennesseeans had been driven to that place, with no 
money and no prospect of getting work. Their condition he de¬ 
scribed as “truly forlorn and pitiable.” At other points north of 
the Ohio it was as bad. Many of these men deserved the deepest 
sympathy as sincere loyalists forced into the enemy’s ranks wholly 
against their will. The situation became acute when Hood in¬ 
vaded the state in November, conscripting all men available as 
soldiers. Large numbers of them deserted at the first oppor¬ 
tunity and were captured in the very act of doing so. Johnson’s 

70 O. R., series iii, vol. iii, p. 735; series i, vol. xxx, part iii, p. 230. 

n J- vol. xxxvi, 7998. 

72 Ibid., vol. xxxviii, 8434. 


196 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


interest was enlisted in their favor, and he succeeded in secur¬ 
ing Thomas’ consent to the release of those known to be heartily 
loyal and aiding the enemy only under compulsion. 73 Finally, 
on the 5th of January, 1865, after the rout of Hood had removed 
all apprehension in his department, Thomas revoked his onerous 
order. Confederate deserters, residents of Kentucky and Ten¬ 
nessee, who could furnish satisfactory evidence of their intention 
to become peaceable citizens, were permitted to go to their homes, 
after reporting to the provost-marshal general at Nashville and 
taking the amnesty oath. 74 

Not only Confederate, but also Union deserters, had reason to 
be grateful for the governor’s good offices. During the summer 
of 1864, refugees from East Tennessee, enlisted in regiments as¬ 
signed to service elsewhere, hearing of the depredations of the 
guerillas in the neighborhood of their houses and in despair for 
the safety of their families and property, escaped and returned 
to protect them. For them, too, Johnson appealed to Thomas. 75 
They had not realized the magnitude of their offence, he said, and 
had intended to go back to duty, but fear of being court-martialed 
now kept them away. In deference to his request, Thomas con¬ 
sented to receive back the offenders without trial or punishment, 
if they reported within twenty days. 76 

The operations of the Union army, particularly in the early 
years of the war, were seriously impeded by the lack of any 
adequate transportation facilities in the state. In 1862, the only 
railroads in running order which could be utilized to advantage 
were the Memphis, Clarksville, and Louisville and the Louisville, 
Nashville, and Chattanooga. The former was in serious financial 
difficulties and, after it had failed twice in the payment of the 
interest on its bonds, the governor took it over in the name of the 
state. 77 The Louisville-Nashville road was of far more impor¬ 
tance, as the channel of communication with the North for the 
Federal armies operating against Georgia and with the South for 

73 O. R., series i, vol. xlv, part ii, pp. 308, 319. 

74 Nashville Dispatch, January 12, 1865. 

76 J. P., vol. xlvii, -240. 

74 Ibid., -283. 

77 Ibid., vol. xxi, 4822. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


197 


the Confederate armies operating against Kentucky. On it the 
forces and supplies of Buell and Rosecrans, Albert Sidney John¬ 
son and Bragg were transported. It was, however, utterly inade¬ 
quate for the demands upon it. Its length made it extremely dif¬ 
ficult to defend, and the large number of trestles, bridges and 
tunnels, which could be destroyed easily in a short time, enabled 
cavalry to keep it almost constantly crippled. Thus, without 
warning, a Union army, far from its base, might, at any time, be 
placed in a dangerous predicament. 

This difficulty demanded a prompt solution. The most feasible 
one lay in the completion of the already projected Nashville and 
Northwestern road, designed to connect the capital with Hick¬ 
man, Kentucky, on the Mississippi river, a hundred and fifty 
miles distant, and to strike the Tennessee river at Reynoldsburg. 
It was proposed to complete this line as far as Reynoldsburg, a 
distance of seventy-five miles, all but eight miles of which were 
already graded. 78 Being little more than a third as long as the 
Louisville road, it would greatly expedite communication and the 
task of guarding it would be comparatively simple. But five short 
bridges would be necessary, no accident to which could long 
delay traffic. The road intersected the Memphis, Clarksville, 
and Louisville line, thus opening up connections west and north, 
and, at its terminus at Reynoldsburg, the river was of sufficient 
depth to afford easy navigation for freight-boats and gunboats, 
which could be utilized to land supplies at that point. 

From the outbreak of the war, Johnson had urged this project 
upon the war department and the generals. The successes of the 
Confederate cavalry in 1863 brought its desirability sharply home 
to Rosecrans. On the 27th of August, he replied to the gover¬ 
nor’s solicitations with a proposal 79 to place the work in his hands. 
One responsibility more added to the many which already weighed 
upon him was no deterrent to Johnson; he accepted with alacrity. 
The requisite authority came from Stanton on the 22d of Oc¬ 
tober. 80 The governor was given full power to secure the neces¬ 
sary material, employ engineers and other officers and laborers, 
the contracts being subject to the approval of the quartermaster- 

78 Nashville Union, September 20, 1863. 

79 O. R., series i, vol. xxx, part iii, p. 184. See also pp. 67, 74. 

80 Ibid., vol. xxxi, part iii, p. 14; J- vo *- xxxv > 77 ^ 9 - 


198 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


general. Certificates for rations and supplies from the quarter¬ 
master’s department, indorsed by the governor and the engineer 
in charge, were to be honored. The road was to remain under 
Johnson’s control until its completion, then to be turned over to 
the general manager of government railroads. 

General Grant was directed to supply a force to protect the 
work, 81 but he was too much occupied with other matters to give 
adequate attention to this, and the task of maintaining the guard 
fell largely on Johnson. New companies were raised for this 
purpose and placed under the command of General Gillem. Later 
the place of the white guards was taken by negroes. 

From the persistent cavalry raids, the Louisville-Nashville road 
was more and more ruined, its rolling-stock deteriorated, and it 
became practically useless. For the operations in the southern 
part of the state in 1864, the new line was of the utmost im¬ 
portance and the war department had reason to be grateful to 
Johnson for his foresight. Gillem wrote to him in March: “Gen¬ 
erals Grant and Thomas look upon it as an absolute necessity—? 
in fact it would be impossible to subsist both Thomas’ and Scho¬ 
field’s armies without the aid of this road. At last the com¬ 
mander of the department sees what you saw two years since.” 82 

Pushed forward with Johnson’s characteristic energy, the road 
was sufficiently advanced in May, 1864, for cars to run regularly 
to the Tennessee river. General Webster, Sherman’s chief of 
staff at Nashville, thereupon directed Anderson, the general su¬ 
perintendent, to take it over for the army. 83 Johnson was not 
consulted in the matter, and he lost no time in bringing the over¬ 
sight to Webster’s attention. 84 The road could be used to its 
full capacity for military purposes, he wrote, but until it was 
completed and turned over by him to the war department, he ex¬ 
pected to retain the control given him by his instructions. 

On the 13th of June, Sherman requested Johnson to relinquish 
the management of the road to Anderson and the guarding of it 
to General Rosecrans, “to simplify matters and insure the respon¬ 
sibility of agents,” 85 but the formal transfer did not take place 

81 Ibid. 

82 J. P., vol. xli, 9062. 

83 Ibid., vol. xliii, 9376, 9469. 

84 Ibid. 

85 O. R., series i, vol. xxxviii, part iv, p. 466. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


199 


until the 6th of August, by an order 86 from Stanton based on 
Sherman’s representation that it was necessary for the success 
of his operations. For all purposes of transportation, it had al¬ 
ready been under his management since June, though Johnson 
still directed the work of construction. 87 The latter keenly re¬ 
sented the haste to be rid of his authority and he intimated to 
Sherman that it did not spring from wholly disinterested motives. 
“This state is largely interested in this road,” he wrote, “inno¬ 
cent persons beyond its limits holding the bonds issued for its 
construction. An effort was made by certain parties some time 
since to take charge of the road before it was even in running 
order. It is hardly necessary for me to state that there might be 
parties interested in various ways in having the immediate and 
direct supervision of the road a little farther removed for other 
than military purposes.” The government would do well, he sug¬ 
gested to take over the Louisville-Nashville road also. Large 
sums paid for its use had gone into the pockets of traitors. 88 

The Northwestern road continued to be an important resource 
of Sherman and Thomas throughout the war. Though tempo¬ 
rarily wrecked during Hood’s advance on Nashville, it was 
promptly repaired. To Johnson is due the largest share of the 
credit for the advantages it brought to the Federal armies. 

An obvious result of the victorious Union advance into Ten¬ 
nessee in the spring of 1862 was utter chaos in the state finances. 
The state government, fleeing first from Nashville and then from 
Memphis, took with it for the use of the Confederacy every 
portable asset on which It could lay its hands. When Johnson 
assumed his office at the capitol, specie had practically disap¬ 
peared, the banks were in distress, business was at a standstill, 
and the state in a condition of panic-fear which augured ill for 
the immediate future. The situation was further complicated by 
the fact that the great -bulk of the population, especially the 
wealthier classes, were ardently for the Confederacy and pre¬ 
pared to endure unnecessary hardships and even want if by so 
doing they could embarrass and weaken the military government. 

88 Ibid., part v, pp. 367, 391; J. P., vol. xlv, -126. 

87 O. R., series i, xxxviii, part iv, p. 411; J. P., vol. xlv, -134. 

88 Ibid. 


200 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


General Sherman, in command at Memphis, promptly grasped 
the essential factors of the problem there. It was true, he wrote 
to Johnson in August, 1862, that the Memphis bankers had lost 
their specie, but their notes were secured by property in Tennes¬ 
see which could be proceeded against. Furthermore, the Con¬ 
federates who took away the bank funds possessed assets in the 
state, subject to confiscation for the unlawful acts of the owners- 
The most substantial obstacles in the way of a just settlement 
were the disloyal proclivities of the bankers themselves or timid 
reluctance to commit themselves one way or the other, so long as 
the issue of the war remained in doubt. “They must be true to 
their trust, declare boldly and openly against the parties who 
robbed them and at once begin to realize on assets,” he declared, 
“ . . . else I have no alternative but to conclude that they are in 
complicity with our enemies, and treat them as such. . . . This 
by-play is more dangerous than open, bold rebellion.” 89 

Similar conditions, of course, obtained throughout the state. 
In localities where any funds remained in the banks, the military 
government was called upon to bestir itself to secure them against 
disloyal bank officials and Confederate cavalry. As early as 
April, for example, Johnson had instructed General Negley at 
Columbia to assume custody of the bank and its contents when¬ 
ever his judgment prompted such a course. 90 To Colonel Mason 
at Clarksville he wrote (June) that whoever pleaded garnishment 
by the Confederacy as an excuse for non-payment of debts would 
be promptly arrested and held in custody until he satisfied the 
authorities in respect to the debt and took the oath of allegiance. 91 

The fiscal problem in Nashville 92 was particularly acute, and 
reached a crisis in the summer of 1863, when, as a result of the 
leaguer of 1862, the vicissitudes of Buell’s army, the general 
ruin of the surrounding country, and the regulations of the Fed¬ 
eral government, trade was in a state of almost utter paralysis, 
while prices soared exorbitantly. As regards the staple, cotton, 
the right to purchase was limited to agents of the government 

89 J. vol. xxiv, 5369. 

90 Ibid., vol. xxi, 4993. 

81 Ibid., 4745. 

“Nashville Dispatch, October 15, 1863; Nashville Union, October 17, 
18, 2i, 22, 1863. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 201 

and payment could be made only in Federal treasury notes. The 
consequence was the immediate decline of state paper money. 

Other more potent causes contributed to the same end. Specie 
had vanished by the same processes as in Memphis, and the banks, 
with no assets immediately available, were tottering. By the state 
bank code of 1857-58, bank notes “current and passing at par” 
in Tennessee were receivable in payment of taxes and other debts 
to the state. The Harris government, by an act passed on July 
1, 1861, had modified this provision by legalizing the acceptance 
for such dues of “the circulation of the banks of this state which 
conform to the bank code of Tennessee and the acts amen¬ 
datory thereof.” 93 By this provision, depreciated notes, of what¬ 
ever value in general circulation, could be thrust upon the gov¬ 
ernment at par. 

The resulting embarrassments were great. The bank paper, 
notwithstanding all attempts to bolster it up, declined at an alarm¬ 
ing rate and the income of the government was correspondingly 
diminished. Concern was expressed lest a new and burdensome 
tax would have to be imposed to make up the loss. Protests 
poured in upon Johnson and the newspapers of Nashville began 
a violent controversy among themselves on the issues. The 
Press assigned, as one of the principal causes of the decline of 
the paper, the policy of the Federal government “to absorb the 
entire credit of the country and by the introduction of treasury 
notes to exclude the local currency.” Tennessee merchants, it 
observed, were forced to convert Tennessee money into United 
States money in order to buy goods; and, to avoid, as far as 
possible, loss in exchange, they were naturally indisposed to re¬ 
ceive the former from their customers. This, said the Press, had 
produced a run on the brokers for greenbacks which had shaken 
confidence in the Tennessee banks and depreciated the local 
notes. 94 

The remedy for this state of affairs, which the Press insisted 
was purely artificial and unwarranted by actual conditions, lay, 
in its opinion, in a resolute determination on the part of the people 
to resist all impulses to panic and to force their currency back to 

* Acts 33d Tenn. General Assembly, 2d extra session , 1861 (July 1). 

M Nashville Press, August 17, 1863. 


202 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


its intrinsic value, which, it maintained, was equal to or greater 
than that of the Federal greenbacks. The latter represented no 
gold actually deposited to protect them and carried no guarantee 
of their redemption; whereas the charter of the Bank of Ten¬ 
nessee pledged the credit of the state for the redemption of its 
notes, the issues of the Union and Planters’ banks were amply 
secured, and, in the case of all the banks, the property of their 
officers was available for the purpose of reimbursing depositors 
whose money had been carried off by the Confederates. “Let 
every man resolve,” urged the Press, “that he will not sell his 
Tennessee money unless he is obliged to. This will diminish the 
demand for greenbacks to an extent that will cause an instant 
rise in Tennessee money. . . . Again, let the people buy nothing 
but what they are compelled to have, and the merchants, rather 
than sacrifice their own currency, sell what surplus produce and 
stock they have, and with the proceeds of such sales make their 
necessary purchases, and if the proceeds of the sales exceed their 
immediate wants, lend to their neighbors. ... If any man thinks 
his debt at all doubtful, he will certainly be willing to receive 
Tennessee money; and the banks are compelled to receive it. . . . 
As soon as the restrictions upon trade are removed, Tennessee 
money will rise not only to par, but will advance to a premium.” 95 

Other suggestions were forthcoming in the greatest variety. 
A proposal that the Union and Planters’ banks restore confidence 
in their notes by redeeming them in greenbacks was punctured 
by the objection that the state bank was prohibited by law from 
doing likewise and that, therefore, the fall in the value of its 
issues under such an arrangement would more than offset the 
advantages gained by the rise in those of its rivals. If, on the 
other hand, redemption in gold was attempted, and if the initial 
problem of getting the gold could be surmounted, there was the 
difficulty that the bulk of the notes were in the hands of brokers, 
who would promptly cash them, and, in many cases, would carry 
the specie again out of the state. 96 

The real root of the imbroglio was, of course, far too deep to 
be reached by any such superficial measures as these. The trouble 

95 Ibid., August 21. 

99 Ibid., August 17. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 203 

was in the instability and doubtful status of the state itself and 
all institutions existing under both the old laws and the new mili¬ 
tary regulations. No one could tell how long either would be valid. 
There was neither a regular state government nor any immediate 
prospect of one to set credit on its feet and make either banks 
or private debtors meet their obligations; and nobody who had 
property in or wished to remain a citizen of Tennessee and con¬ 
ceived the remotest possibility of the eventual restoration of 
Confederate rule would dream of calling upon the military gov¬ 
ernment to support him in proceeding against securities whose 
misfortunes were the result of their loyalty to the Southern 
cause. Every man who looked’beyond the immediate future saw 
nothing but impenetrable haze, and, in such an atmosphere, the 
wary appreciated the wisdom of doing nothing and avoiding risks. 

Failing the specie requisite to bolster up the local paper, the 
state was also almost destitute of the only other resource which 
could have availed it in the crisis—stable products, especially 
cotton. The demand for this commodity was great both at home 
and abroad and it brought very high prices in the market, but, of 
all parts of the country, Tennessee was least in condition to 
take advantage of such opportunities. Her plantations were in 
ruins; the negro laborers had abandoned them and departed in 
all directions, many of them making their way to the cities to 
become a burden on the community; and a good proportion of 
the cotton which, notwithstanding these difficulties, was baled, 
fell into the hands of the Confederate bands that constantly 
scoured the country. The remainder depended for a market on 
the military authorities, who too often, as in the case of Truesdail, 
showed scant sympathy for the planters and diverted the lion’s 
share of the profits to their own pockets. Cotton, as a medium of 
exchange, was negligible, and hardly enough of other products 
was available to meet the bare necessities of the people. 

The governor was therefore called upon to deal with the prob¬ 
lem of a paper currency practically unsecured and worth, in 
October, 1863, but half its face value, but, according to the law 
of 1861, receivable at par for all obligations to the government, 
and to confront the probability of a still further decline which 
would bring the receipts so far below the current expenses as to 


204 ANDREW JOHNSON 

necessitate new impositions upon the people which they were 
in no condition to bear and the means, short of actual confisca¬ 
tion, available for which were not apparent. His decision was 
announced (October) in an order 97 to the clerk of the county 
court and the tax collectors of Davidson county, which included 
Nashville, to receive, besides specie, only the legal tender notes 
of the United States in payment of moneys due the state. So 
radical an inference with the relations of creditors and debtors 
exposed him at once to the most bitter attacks, but his obvious 
and sufficient defence was that the order was compelled by 
actualities; and pleas of subversion of legal rights had little 
weight with Johnson, when those rights had been freshly created 
by a secessionist legislature in the interest of the Confederacy. 
The governor’s order, his friends pointed out, was but a rever¬ 
sion to the law of 1857-58, which was in fact the only valid 
one. They took pains to insist that his policy was in no sense 
a denial or avoidance of the ultimate obligation of the state to 
redeem the notes of the state bank, but simply a measure de¬ 
signed to meet a temporary emergency in the affairs of the 
government. 

On the other hand, the governor was urged to use the military 
power to assist the banks to collect their debts and to force them 
to redeem their paper, and some voices loudly charged him to 
solve the entire problem by a confiscation of Confederate prop¬ 
erty, 98 but this he steadfastly refused to do. Under the circum¬ 
stances, his course was eminently wise. Whatever moral justi¬ 
fication there might have been in seizing the possessions of the 
converters of the specie to relieve the distress of their victims, 
the spoil available could not have come near remedying the evil 
done and the political effect of such a policy would have been 
disastrous. Nothing could permanently revive the decrepit local 
paper except the determination of the war and the restoration 
of confidence. It was only as the scene of military operations 
shifted to the southward and the collapse of the Confederacy 
became assured that the state finances began to approach stability. 

" Nashville Dispatch, October 15. 

M E.g., Nashville Union, October 18. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 205 

By the winter of 1862-63, the immediate pressure of the 
Confederate army on Nashville was sufficiently relieved to enable 
Johnson to turn his attention from the military problems which 
had almost monopolized it to the business of civil administration. 
Hitherto, he had found time only to suppress open disloyalty. 

The scope of his civil authority, with directions for its exer¬ 
cise, was prescribed in two sets of instructions" issued from the 
war department in April, 1863. The governor was to impose 
taxes for the support of the poor, for police purposes, and, in 
general, for the maintenance of his government. He might levy 
exactions upon disloyal persons—especially upon any who had 
contributed money, property, or slaves to the enemy—for the 
subsistence of the wives and children of refugees and Confed¬ 
erate soldiers, or for other purposes, and take possession of the 
property and collect the rents for lands, buildings, and slaves of 
persons within the Confederate lines. Public buildings belong¬ 
ing to the state of Tennessee and all other public property in 
Nashville were to be taken over and assigned, so far as required, 
to the purposes of the civil government, all under the control of 
the governor, subject only to military occupation as the order of 
the commanding general. Vacant or abandoned property belong¬ 
ing to Confederates was also at his disposal. -Lands and planta¬ 
tions so acquired were to be leased for cultivation on terms fixed 
by him, and records of the transactions sent to the war depart¬ 
ment. Upon him also was placed the responsibility of providing 
for the employment and subsistence of the slaves of Confeder¬ 
ates, under the regulations of Congress. Lists and descriptions 
of them were to be compiled for the war department. The able- 
bodied men might be employed on the public works, the others at 
tasks for which they were suited. Their payment was in John¬ 
son’s hands. He had also to provide medical attendance for the 
sick and food and clothing for the poor and destitute and to keep 
careful accounts of all expenditures for these purposes. 

All these functions and many more be actively exercised. 
The destitution of the people, caused by the war, was perhaps 
his most important immediate concern. As early as August, 
1862, he had taken steps for their relief by dispatching letters 100 

99 O. !R., series iii, vol. iii, pp. 122, 115; J. P., vol. xxx, 6758. 

100 Nashville Union, August 20, 1862. 


206 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


to a number of the most wealthy avowed secessionists of Nash¬ 
ville, requiring them to contribute a stated sum for the support 
of women and children deprived of means of subsistence by the 
absence of their husbands and fathers with the Confederate 
army, and whose necessities, as he said, ‘‘have become so mani¬ 
fest and their demands for the necessaries of life so urgent, that 
the laws of justice and humanity would be violated unless some¬ 
thing was done to relieve their suffering and destitute condition.” 
A second tax for the same purpose was imposed in December, 101 
causing “high-toned grief,” it was said, among distinguished 
citizens. 102 

Not only distressed families of Confederates, but hordes of 
loyal refugees flocked to Nashville, as to every other Union 
stronghold in the state. The supplies in the capital, scant even 
for the citizens, threatened to give out entirely before such an 
influx of hungry human beings, and even the troops had to be 
put on half rations in the fall of 1862. 103 No adequate shelter 
was available. Another crisis, was faced in the hard winter of 
1863-64. Fuel, especially, was in great demand. Johnson gave 
free transportation over the Northwestern railroad for wood pro¬ 
cured by the mayor and aldermen to relieve this want. 104 During 
the summer of 1864—so General Miller reported—the refugee 
house at Nashville could not accommodate half the applicants 
for shelter. Vacant houses in the city and surrounding towns 
were assigned to them and Johnson’s quartermaster provided 
tents for the remainder. 105 Union relief associations were formed 
to expend to the best advantage the money raised for the poor. 

The pressure upon the civil authorities was increased by the 
practice adopted by the military commanders of sending disaf¬ 
fected citizens to the rear as the army advanced southward. A 
great part of the remaining population of the state was thus 
threatening to engulf Nashville and the country north of it, re¬ 
quiring to be lodged and fed, though by what means was not 

Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, p. xxviii; Savage, Life and 
Public Services of Andrew Johnson, p. 274. 

102 New York Tribune, December 15, 1862. 

103 Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, p. 598. 

,M J. P., vol. xxxi, 7800. 

30 Ubid., vol. xlv, -52. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


207 


apparent. Instead of this, Johnson wrote to Thomas in July, 
1864, they should he pressed back upon the enemy, to devour his 
resources. Let the Southerners “hear the cries of suffering and 
supply their stomachs and backs with food and raiment. . . . 
By sending them here they add to the rebel or copperhead senti¬ 
ment and increase opposition to the government. . . . They 
would rather go anywhere else than South, and it would create 
more terror than sending them North." 106 Thomas replied that 
General Sherman concurred in Johnson's view and intended to 
adopt it after the campaign was over; but to do so while the 
army was advancing would involve the troublesome process of 
passing large numbers through the lines under flag of truce. 107 

The interposition of the governor was also required to save the 
people from wrong at the hands of harsh or careless military 
officials. Often even the property of loyal citizens was con¬ 
fiscated, horses seized, and negroes carried off upon insufficient 
pretexts and without adequate compensation, sometimes with no 
apparent authority. Houses were occupied for military purposes 
and the families turned into the streets with no provision for 
their accommodation. Workmen complained of ill-treatment or 
violation of the contracts made with them. Outrages were com¬ 
mitted under pretext of foraging. “If it had not been for the 
incessant exertions of Governor Johnson, who has never failed 
to bring these petty military usurpations, depredations, and 
swindling before the commander of the post, an appalling amount 
of villainy and robbery would have been witnessed here," com¬ 
mented the Nashville Union in November, 1862. 

A considerable part of Stanton’s instructions to Johnson for 
the civil administration of the state had to do with the manage¬ 
ment of the negro “contrabands" who were not available for 
military service or labor on the public works. In elaboration of 
this subject, Stanton wrote: “They had better be set to digging 
their subsistence out of the ground. If there are plantations near 
you on either side of the river, which are abandoned by their 
owners, first put as many contrabands on such as they will hold, 
that 'is, as can draw subsistence from them. If some still remain, 

1## Ibid., -16. 

w Ibid., -32. 


208 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


get loyal men of character to take them temporarily on wages to 
be paid to the contrabands themselves—such men obliging them¬ 
selves to not let the contrabands be kidnapped or forcibly carried 
away. Of course if any contrabands voluntarily make arrange¬ 
ments to work for their living you will not hinder them. It is 
thought best to leave details to your discretion subject to the 
provisions of the acts of Congress and the orders of the war 
department.” 108 

The problem of dealing with this incoherent mass of humanity 
which, by the summer of 1863, had flooded Nashville, was in¬ 
deed one of the most perplexing which the governor was called 
upon to face. Released from their accustomed bonds and filled 
with a pleasing, if vague, sense of uncontrolled freedom, they 
flocked to the cities, with little hope of obtaining remunerative 
work and little inclination to avail themselves of it if it came. 
Wagon-loads of them were brought in from the country by the 
soldiers and dumped down to shift for themselves. As was to be 
expected, they became, before long, a distressing burden on the 
citizens. The food and fuel available for them was in no pro¬ 
portion to their want. Hunger and cold came, and with them 
suffering and crime. Huddled together in ruined old buildings, 
sheds, and cellars, they presented a picture of abject wretched¬ 
ness. Many of the young women formed illicit relations with the 
soldiers, “to the literal demoralization of both and the military 
demoralization of the latter.” Filth and disease prevailed. 109 

In the country, the negroes wandered about unrestrained. 
Many had arms obtained from the soldiers; some were bent on 
mischief. The white families, particularly those of Southern 
sympathizers, who had been generally disarmed, were in constant 
alarm. Many laborers belonging to loyal masters definitely as¬ 
serted their right to work for themselves, while drawing on their 
owners for food and lodging. One general sought to remedy this 
by hiring slaves to their masters by printed contracts. The 
negroes drove off horses and mules from the farms and commit¬ 
ted waste with impunity. 

The efforts of both the governor and the military authorities 

108 Ibid., vol. xxx, 6762. 

109 Ibid., vol. xxxvi, 7891; O. R., series i, vol. xxxii, part ii, p. 267. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


209 


to deal with this situation during 1863 were only partially suc¬ 
cessful. The task was far too great for officials already over¬ 
whelmed with other duties; a separate and special organization 
to execute it was clearly demanded. This was finally supplied 
by an order 110 of the war department, dated February 4, 1864. 
A contraband camp was established at Nashville, under command 
of an officer detailed for the purpose. The quartermaster’s de¬ 
partment furnished the supplies. From this camp any loyal 
civilian might hire negroes for labor at fixed wages. Land on 
which to work them could be leased from the district commander. 
Any negroes not so hired were to be set to work for wages on 
abandoned plantations. Those who were able to do so were to 
pay for the supplies furnished them, thus making the camp as 
nearly self-supporting as possible. 

Beginning in 1863, steps were taken unofficially to provide edu¬ 
cation for the negro children of the state. In February, 1865, 
Colonel Mussey, the chief superintendent of contrabands for East 
and Middle Tennessee, reported four negro schools at Nashville 
and one each at Murfreesboro, Stevenson, Huntsville, Gallatin, 
Clarksville, Edgefield, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, with about 
two thousand pupils, sustained largely by benevolent societies, be¬ 
sides a number of small pay-schools conducted by the negroes 
themselves, and a school in each colored regiment in charge of 
the chaplain. 111 ' 

110 Nashville Union, February 11, 1864. 

111 J. P., vol. lvii, -2315. 


CHAPTER XI 


Conclusion 

Having followed, step by step, the progress of reorganization 
in Tennessee, it remains to condemn or to justify the means by 
which the desired end was attained. And the conclusion reached 
will be also a condemnation or justification of Johnson’s career 
as governor; for one cannot read the records of these three criti¬ 
cal years without realizing that the essential features of the work 
were peculiarly his own. Contemporaries fully appreciated this; 
it was at the governor personally that their attacks were directed. 
Only recently, a distinguished participant in those stirring events, 
Mr. Oliver P. Temple, in an unsparing criticism, has thrust upon 
his shoulders a heavy burden of blame and reproach. 1 

The first serious charge laid at Johnson’s door is that he pur¬ 
posely delayed reconstruction. This accusation was freely circu¬ 
lated at the time. Mr. Temple says: “The work of reorganizing 
the state and of revising the constitution might have been and 
should have been accomplished in a regular, decent way one year, 
and possibly two, earlier than it was, and the state admitted back 
into the U,nion. The last of the Confederate armies was driven 
out of Middle and Western Tennessee in the summer of 1863, and 
out of the greater part of East Tennessee in September of the 
same year.” 

Only with the greatest diffidence may the conclusions of one so 
intimately identified as Mr. Temple with the episodes of which 
he treats be called in question; but my study of the records, 
without the advantage of the personal viewpoint of Mr. Temple 
and others who have expressed opinions similar to his, has 
forced me to believe that they have been hardly just to Johnson. 
If my account of the war in Tennessee establishes anything, it 
is that at no time 'previous to the end of December, 1864, was a 
fair, dignified, and representative election possible. 

Oliver P. Temple, Notable Men of Tennessee, pp. 416 et seq. 


211 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 

It is true that the successes of June and July, 1863, placed most 
of the state temporarily in the control of the government. John¬ 
son promptly pronounced for an election in October, if condi¬ 
tions continued favorable. But nothing really decisive had oc¬ 
curred; neither of the Confederate armies in Tennessee had been 
beaten in a pitched battle; Rosecrans’ advance was attended with 
serious difficulties and might be checked at any time. The Union 
army had been just as favorably situated a year previously, only 
to be manoeuvred out of all its advantages, and those who had 
ventured to celebrate its triumphs had reason to regret their pre¬ 
mature enthusiasm. The people were not disposed again to rally 
around the administration, until they received substantial assur¬ 
ances that the Union domination was permanent. From every 
point of view, it was desirable that a victory over Bragg should 
stimulate popular confidence, and there is every reason to believe 
that Johnson only awaited this to clear the way for the restoration 
of a civil government with the prestige of victory behind it. 

All such hopes were dispelled by the disaster at Chickamauga 
(September 20). Now, more than ever before, before even a 
beginning in reorganization could be made, it was absolutely 
necessary that the army recover its shattered prestige. The fall 
and early winter had passed before this was done. More im¬ 
portant still, East Tennessee, the citadel of Unionism, was in 
the grip of Longstreet, whose army hung on desperately in the 
northeast, even after the siege of Knoxville was raised. 

Until January, then, there was no reasonable pretext for an 
appeal to the distracted people. On the contrary, many Union 
men begged Johnson to spare himself and them the mortification 
of certain failure in an impossible task. Nevertheless, before the 
end of the month, he had returned to the work, provided the 
public with a complete program for restoring the state, and ar¬ 
ranged for county elections in March, allowing for the “decent” 
interval which Mr. Temple says was desirable. That reconstruc¬ 
tion in the counties should precede the action of the state as a 
whole was a wise and provident decision. It would supply the 
judicial and other machinery most essential for immediate local 
needs, and, at the same time, would furnish a criterion of the 
popular attitude toward the government in the various sections, 


2i2 ANDREW JOHNSON 

by which the result of a general election could be accurately 
foretold. 

The outcome of the March elections was eminently discourag¬ 
ing. They were commonly designated as farcical, and Johnson’s 
most trusted supporters advised against again inviting so pain¬ 
ful a humiliation. In fact, whether the Unionists or the Con¬ 
federates happened to be at any time temporarily dominant in 
the state was beside the point. Nothing worth while could be 
done while the army of the Cumberland had a resolute, efficient 
enemy in its front and cavalry and guerillas operating in its rear. 
This situation appertained throughout the summer and fall of 
1864. The people of Tennessee awaited the certainty of the per¬ 
manent control of their state by one side or the other. While the 
issue was doubtful, their only hope of security lay in judicious 
inaction; so much, experience had soundly taught them. 

During all this period, Johnson appears ready and willing to 
take forward steps in reconstruction upon even slight encourage¬ 
ment, while it is the bulk of the Union party who hang back. The 
East Tennessee convention displays the most extreme anxiety to 
adjourn without action. The May convention at Nashville de¬ 
clares for an election only when the state can be represented from 
all its parts. Johnson’s correspondence teems with letters urging 
waiting and watching. From West Tennessee comes the assur¬ 
ance that no vote can be taken there. In July, the municipal 
government of Memphis is suspended. In August, Forrest enters 
Memphis. In September, Gillem is routed in East Tennessee. 
Everywhere guerillas abound and refugees flee before them. 

One is constrained to believe that Johnson was dealing only 
with unimpeachable facts when he declared that, under such con¬ 
ditions, an election was impossible. 2 Nevertheless, he never 
ceased to assert that, whenever a considerable number of citizens 
manifested their desire to reconstruct the government, he was 
ready actively to cooperate with them. Indeed, he seems to have 
driven rather than followed the convention of the 5th of Septem- 

2 However, General Thomas and General S. P. Carter, the provost- 
marshal general at Nashville, declared in January, 1864, that civil author¬ 
ity could and should he restored then. O. R., series i, vol. xxxii, part 
ii, p. 64; Nashville Union, Febraury 16, 1864. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


213 


ber; all its recommendations were promptly embodied in his 
proclamations, and every assistance given to forward its de¬ 
signs. Never do we find the governor opposing a restoration 
movement by the people; on the contrary, his energies are al¬ 
ways devoted to encouraging them. The election of November, 
held under his auspices, was another fiasco; but he lent his sanc¬ 
tion to the call for a convention in December. The work would 
have been accomplished then, but the invasion of Hood and 
Breckenridge intervened and the convention could not assemble. 
At last, on the i<6th of December, the battle of Nashville created 
the situation for which he had yearned so long. The Confederate 
army was not only beaten, but crushed. Tennessee was positively 
won for the Union. Never before could this have been said. 
For the first time, the administration could hope for an unre¬ 
strained expression of whatever Union feeling existed in the 
state. The governor acted with the utmost possible energy. The 
reconstruction convention met on the 9th of January, and he was 
its guiding spirit. The whole weight of his influence was exerted 
in favor of immediate, decisive measures. Obstructionists were 
overruled, slow methods of procedure were discountenanced, and 
in two months the work was done. 

Mr. Temple asks: was not this long delay in calling a conven¬ 
tion due to Johnson’s desire to hold his position of military gov¬ 
ernor until he could step into a higher place in March? “His 
ambition was to carry to Washington his own state as a recon- 
stiucted member of the Union, and present it as a rich jewel to 
the nation. It would give him new prestige and eclat. Hence 
his sudden haste just at the close of his service as military 
governor.” 

In response, it may be inquired what advantage could possibly 
come to Johnson from reconstruction in March, 1865, which 
would not have been greatly enhanced by reconstruction in June, 
1864, when he was a candidate for national preferment and men¬ 
tioned by many for the first place on the ticket; or by reconstruc¬ 
tion in November, 1864, when he was seeking the vote of the 
people. In either case, his advancement would have been helped 
immeasurably, and the prestige thus gained would surely have 
lasted until March. But neither in June nor in November was 


214 ANDREW JOHNSON 

reconstruction practicable. As it was, he was compelled, much 
against his will, to leave the work unfinished and come to Wash¬ 
ington without the perfect “jewel” with which he might have 
courted favors for himself. 

If we absolve Johnson from blame for unnecessary delay in the 
performance of his duty, there remains the charge that the 
method he adopted was arbitrary, unconstitutional, and perma¬ 
nently injurious in its results. Two other feasible plans were 
suggested. A legislature might be chosen by popular vote and 
might inaugurate the desired amendments in the manner pre¬ 
scribed by the constitution itself; or the people might be called 
upon to elect a second convention for the express purpose of 
changing the fundamental law. The first alternative, however, 
was open to the objection that a strict compliance with the con¬ 
stitutional provision for amendment would require a period of 
several years, which, in such a crisis, was not to be thought of. 
Another practical argument against committing reconstruction to 
a legislature was that, in the unsettled condition of the country, 
no legislature could be chosen to represent all the counties of the 
state, except on a general ticket, and such representation was 
manifestly imperfect, not at all the sort contemplated by the 
constitution. 

The second suggestion was at once weaker and stronger than 
the first. Its weakness was that it was no more constitutional 
than Johnson’s plan. To this, however, it was replied that none 
of the three plans was, in reality, constitutional. No legislature 
was in existence, nor the machinery prescribed by the constitu¬ 
tion for electing one. From a Union viewpoint, the revolutionary 
acts of the secessionists had thrown the constitution out of gear 
and there was no regular way of putting it again in operation. 
This was generally admitted by all Union men, but the most con¬ 
servative pressed for the nearest possible approximation to con¬ 
stitutional forms, while others ridiculed the idea of sacrificing 
every practical consideration to a pretended legality which was, in 
truth, no legality at all. 

If reconstruction by means of the legislature should be aban¬ 
doned on practical grounds, the question remained, should the ori¬ 
ginal convention complete the work or a second one be elected 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 215 

especially for that purpose. The advocates of the latter view took 
the position that the existing body was in no just sense representa¬ 
tive. Few, if any, of the delegates had been chosen in a regular 
manner, and the wording of the call was positive proof that the 
people could have had no idea that they were creating a body to 
formulate constitutional amendments. Here again, however, the 
objections had more apparent than real weight. If the amend¬ 
ments were not to be proposed in the manner provided for in the 
constitution, it mattered little in what manner they were pro¬ 
posed. They could not become law until accepted by the sover¬ 
eign people, and the same people would vote on them in either 
case. There could be little doubt that an election for a second 
convention would bring together almost precisely the same indi¬ 
viduals as were already deliberating; and, if the people disap¬ 
proved of the actions of these “self-constituted” leaders, their 
obvious course was to refuse them their sanction at the polls and 
thus make a second convention necessary. If, on the other hand, 
they favored the amendments, time and money would be saved 
and nothing important lost. In support of this view, there was 
the impressive precedent of the irregular proceedings resorted to 
in framing and adopting the Federal Constitution of 1789. As 
Johnson himself clearly pointed out, the convention method de¬ 
liberately disregarded prescribed forms and depended for its 
justification upon the inherent sovereignty of the people. What 
they established received thereby the highest possible sanction. 
The only necessity, then, was to get the expression of the will 
of the sovereign; and, whether the first or a second convention 
submitted proposals, the decisive expression would come from 
the votes of the same persons at the polls. 

The chief advantage of the one-convention plan was in the 
saving of time. Was there any occasion for haste, aside from 
the gratification of Johnson’s desire for “eclat,” which justified 
the sacrificing of dignity to speed? As has been shown, the call 
for the convention, issued in November, 1864, contemplated leav¬ 
ing the work of revision to a second body, more formally chosen, 
and to this arrangement Johnson had offered no objection. But, 
in the fall and winter, the administration party in Congress had 
struck rough ground in developing its reconstruction projects. 


2l6 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


An especially strong opposition developed to the proposed thir¬ 
teenth amendment. For some time its success seemed doubtful, 
for all the formidable “copperhead” strength was arrayed un¬ 
compromisingly against it. Under date of January 14, 1865, 
there is, in the Johnson correspondence, a letter 3 from one W. 
Bilbo, a prominent Tennessee banker, then in Washington, in¬ 
forming the governor that the amendment is held up for lack of 
two more votes in its support. The writer continues: “Can’t 
you come to our assistance with the ten congressional votes of 
Tennessee? Let the convention at once repeal the secession ordi¬ 
nance, emancipate the slaves, appoint a day within the next four¬ 
teen to elect members of Congress, elect them, send them on here 
so they can help us pass the amendment ?” It is at least a plausi¬ 
ble surmise that other messages of similar purport came to John¬ 
son. Devoted as he was to the principle of the amendment and, 
now prominently identified with the administration, he would 
recognize the importance of avoiding a reverse on this cardinal 
point of its program and of coming promptly to its aid with every 
available resource. The congressional vote of Tennessee, he was 
told, would be decisive of the result. He was about to leave the 
state, but if, during the few weeks that remained to him as gov¬ 
ernor and while his hand still held the helm, Tennessee could be 
launched on her course and her congressional candidates placed 
before the people, his influence was powerful enough to direct 
her in accordance with the views of the administration. Once he 
was distant in Washington, however, events in his state would be 
beyond his control, and the dissensions among the Unionists, all 
too strongly evinced on many previous occasions, made him ap¬ 
prehensive of the outcome. May not this be the explanation of 
his impatience to accomplish everything possible in the short 
time available between the defeat of Hood in December and his 
departure in February? 

Another charge against Johnson remains to be treated: that, 
by the unnecessarily rigid requirements of his “iron-clad” oath, 
he excluded many unquestionably loyal men from participation in 
reconstruction, thus destroying their interest in the work, humil¬ 
iating and aggrieving them, and losing their counsel, influence, 
and cooperation, beside depriving the new constitution and gov- 

8 J. P., vol. LV, -1878. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 217 

ernment of a substantial, impressive indorsement at the polls, for 
the sole purpose of forcing his own views and his own men upon 
the state. 

It will, no doubt, be generally agreed that the only parties shut 
out by the oath who had any just claim to be admitted were the 
pro-slavery loyalists and the “peace Democrats.” I have already 
expressed my opinion that, whatever censure they may have de¬ 
served for their violent strictures upon the government in a crisis 
of the nation’s fate, they should not have been discriminated 
against in Tennessee, while their counterparts in the Northern 
states received toleration. All were equally to be justified or 
condemned. On this ground, as it seems to me, Johnson’s policy 
may ibe fairly censured. On the other hand, it must be remem¬ 
bered that the conditions in Tennessee were peculiar. The various 
loyal factions were of uncertain and shifting strength. The 
state had been excepted from the emancipation proclamation for 
the express purpose of bringing prestige and impulse to the 
progam of the national administration by herself taking the 
initiative in freeing her own slaves. With whatever advantages 
the government expected from this action, the discredit of a 
defeat would be commensurate. Finally, Lincoln, with his sensi¬ 
tive finger upon the nation’s pulse, approved Johnson’s course. 
Usually magnanimous and generous almost to a fault, he gave 
way, as regards Tennessee, to the latter’s representations; and 
it is safe to say that he did so only after thoroughly diagnosing 
the situation and satisfying himself that no more lenient policy 
was feasible. Tennessee seemed always on the point of breaking 
away from his control, and he could not afford to relax the reins 
on so intractable a steed. The Union cause required to be in the 
hands of active, determined men, who, however they might blun¬ 
der, would not falter. To such Johnson committed it. His three 
years in office had been one long struggle with timidity and irreso¬ 
lution. It is not to be wondered at that he embraced the brief 
opportunity offered him to finish the battle himself with few, but 
dependable and single-hearted fighters at his back. 

Biographers of most men who have attained national promi¬ 
nence are able to lighten their narrative with many personal anec¬ 
dotes, interesting in themselves and helpful in explaining the 


218 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


characters and careers of their subjects. Such advantages must 
be largely foregone by one who writes of Johnson, at least for 
the period of the war, when his activities were confined to 
Tennessee. This is to be explained partly by Johnson’s own 
personality, partly by the impossible circumstances in which he 
was placed. During these three years, he occupied a position 
which would have been insupportable by any man less self-suffi¬ 
cient, grim, impervious—one is tempted to say, less fanatical— 
than he. Never popular with the leaders in his state, his return 
among his fellow-citizens as the voluntary instrument of the 
Federal government for their repression aroused against him a 
hatred that expressed itself on every possible occasion and in 
every possible form of vituperation and insult. And surely no 
man ever was less qualified than Johnson to overcome prejudice 
by virtue of his personality. Neither graciousness of address, 
charm of manner, nor suavity of disposition won or mollified his 
enemies. He possessed none of the appealing gentleness, broad 
sympathy, and deep understanding of and love for humanity, 
none of the saving humor which made up so much of the great¬ 
ness and power of Lincoln. His mind was narrow, bigoted, un¬ 
compromising, suspicious; his nature solitary and reticent; his 
demeanor coldly repellant or violently combative. Fessenden’s 
remark of him as president, that he had no friends, applied to 
him equally as governor. His harsh, domineering intolerance 
drove from him those who admired his impeccable honesty and 
patriotism and his brilliant abilities, or, at least, held them only 
by bonds of esteem rather than devotion. He remained always 
a solitary man, yielding his full confidence to none. 

Of personal letters, to which the biographer looks for the softer 
tones of a portrait, Johnson received comparatively few and 
wrote fewer. He was never able to supply the lack of a good 
elementary education. His pen was not his friend; his spelling 
and grammar were always faulty. He complains to his wife that 
the difficulty he experiences in writing often impels him to put 
the letter aside unfinished. 

The studied contempt with which the pro-Southern citizens of 
Nashville treated him stung his pride, caused him to draw further 
back within himself, and made him still more resentful. Deputed 


219 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 

to extend the protecting aegis of law and orderly government over 
the state, his utter lack of finesse made him appear to be brandish¬ 
ing a club to frighten the people into subjection, and their ani¬ 
mosity centred upon him. The hostility to the Federal govern¬ 
ment and troops, wrote General Nelson to Buell in July, 1862, 
seems settled into a fierce hatred to Governor Johnson, to him 
personally more than officially, for in questioning many people 
they cannot point to an act that he has not been warranted in 
doing by their own showing; but still, either in manner of doing 
it, or that it should be done by him, or from some indefinable cause 
touching him their resentment is fierce and vindictive, and this 
country, from being neutral at least, as you left it, is now hostile 
and in arms.” 4 

Johnson returned hatred with all the violent intensity of his 
nature. As the storm of abuse beat upon him, he became more 
and more bitter. With him, an affront took on something of the 
character of the feud, familiar, one may imagine, to his not too 
remote forbears; the debt must be repaid in full. He developed 
an almost savage determination to humiliate the “aristocrats,” 
the scorners of free labor, and to make them pay the price of the 
ruin of the war. More than any other idea, this permeates his 
public and private utterances. It was by the constantly reiterated 
expression, “Treason must be made odious, traitors punished 
and impoverished,” that he became most widely known through¬ 
out the country. 

The habit of indulging in intoxicants, afterwards reputed as 
Johnson’s most conspicuous personal failing as president, had, of 
course, been formed long before. There is no evidence that it 
interfered seriously with the performance of his duties, but it 
occasionally betrayed him into extravagances of action and ex¬ 
pression which did him no credit. Charles A. Dana, who, as 
assistant secretary of war, paid him an official visit in Nashville 
in 1863, reports that the governor opened their first interview by 
producing a whiskey-bottle, and, in his opinion, was addicted to 
taking “more than most gentlemen would have done.” 5 

Carl Schurz gives one of the few interesting personal impres- 

4 C. R., series i, vol. xvi, part i, p. 816. 

6 Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, p. 106. 


220 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


sions of Johnson, 6 as he saw him in 1863. “His appearance,” he 
says, “was not prepossessing, at least not to me. His countenance 
was of a distinctly plebeian cast, somewhat like that of the late 
Senator Douglas, but it had nothing of Douglas’ force and 
vivacity in it. There was no genial sunlight in it; rather some¬ 
thing sullen, something betokening a strong will inspired by bit¬ 
ter feelings. I could well imagine him leading with vindictive 
energy an uprising of a lower order of society against an aristoc¬ 
racy from whose lordly self-assertion he had suffered, and whose 
pride he was bent upon humiliating. . . . Judging from his con¬ 
versation, his mind moved in a narrow circle of ideas as well as 
of phrases. ... I could not rid myself of the impression that 
beneath his staid and sober exterior there were still some wild 
fires burning which occasionally might burst to the surface. 
This impression was strengthened by a singular experience. It 
happened twice or three times that, when, I called upon him, I 
was told by the attendant that the governor was sick and could 
not see anybody; then, after the lapse of four or five days, he 
would send for me, and I would find him uncommonly natty 
in his attire and generally groomed with especial care. He would 
also wave off any 'inquiry about his health. When I mentioned 
this circumstance to one of the most prominent Union men of 
Nashville, he smiled, and said that the governor had ‘his infirmi¬ 
ties,’ but was ‘all right’ on the whole. 

“My conversation with him always turned upon political sub¬ 
jects. He was a demonstratively fierce Union man—not upon 
anti-slavery grounds, but from constitutional reasons, and from 
hatred of the slave-holding aristocracy, the oppressors and mis- 
leaders of the common people, who had resolved to destroy the 
Republic if they were not permitted to rule it. The. constant 
burden of his speech was that this rebellion against the govern¬ 
ment of the Union was treason, and that treason was a crime that 
must be made odious by visiting condign punishment upon the 
traitors. To hear him expatiate upon this, his favorite theme, 
one would have thought that if this man ever came into power, 
the face of the country would soon bristle with gibbets, and 
foreign lands swarm with fugitives from the avenging sword of 

*Carl Schurz, Reminiscences, vol. iii, p. 95. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 


221 


the Republic. And such sentiments he uttered not in a tone 
betraying the slightest excitement, but with the calmness of long¬ 
standing and unquestionable conviction.” 

John M. Palmer, in his Personal Recollections, thus estimates 
Johnson: “He possessed great natural capacity, but his knowl¬ 
edge of the science of government was superficial. He was sin¬ 
cere and earnest in his opinions, but his prejudices were violent 
and often unjust. His personal dislikes were never concealed. 
Bailie Peyton said of him that ‘he hated a gentleman by instinct.’ 
After listening to him one day, I said: ‘Governor, the anti¬ 
slavery men of the North oppose slavery because it is unjust, and 
hope by abolishing it to make free citizens of those human chat¬ 
tels.’ He answered: ‘D—n the negroes; I am fighting these 
traitorous aristocrats, their masters!’ ” 7 

Almost all the defects of Johnson’s character noted by his con¬ 
temporaries may be explained by the hardships, limitations, and 
narrowness of his early environment and by the prejudices en¬ 
gendered in a man conscious of natural superiority, but held down 
by institutions and conventions. The lack of broad, comprehen¬ 
sive interests had, however, a compensating element,—it enabled 
him to concentrate all the strength of his extraordinarily forceful 
nature upon the few essentials which he clearly comprehended,, 
and to move to them with overwhelming energy. He had three 
invaluable assets for the work to which he was called—singleness 
of mind, tenacity of purpose, indomitable persistency. In the 
darkest days for the Union, in the spring of 1863, he wrote to 
his wife: “I feel sometimes like giving all up in dispare; but this 
will not do we must hold out to the end, this rebelion is wrong 
and must be put down let cost what it may in the life and treasure. 
I intend to appropriate the remainder of my life to the redemp¬ 
tion of my adopted home East Tennessee and you and Mary 8 
must not be weary, it is our fate and we should be willing to 
bear it cheerfully. Impatience and dissatisfaction will not better 
it or shorten the time of our suffering.” 9 The whole letter reveals 
a tortured mind and an exhausted body, sustained by an unflag¬ 
ging spirit. With his property confiscated, his family for a time 

7 John M. Palmer, Personal Recollections, p. 127. 

“Johnson’s daughter. 

# J. P., vol. xxx, 6689. 


222 


ANDREW JOHNSON 


in danger and distress, hated and insulted by his neighbors, 
maligned by rivals and enemies, often defeated, mortified, and 
seemingly almost discredited in his labors to reorganize his state, 
his devotion and patriotism never faltered, but soared higher and 
surer with every reverse of fortune. When the loyalists of Ten¬ 
nessee were perplexed and almost demoralized, he stood firmly 
and saw clearly, and by these merits won the confidence of Lin¬ 
coln and Stanton and was thus able to hold the leadership, over¬ 
come all opposition, and command the course of events. 

Johnson’s weaknesses were those of temperament and training. 
His claims to honor are based upon loyalty, self-sacrifice, and 
a steadfast devotion to the cause he believed to be right, which, 
considering all that he had at stake, can only be described as 
heroic. The issue joined, he stepped unhesitatingly forward into 
the front rank for service, regardless of his own comfort and 
safety, and gave himself unsparingly to saving the state. He 
worked, says a perhaps too fulsome panegyrist, “with an industry 
and energy that never grew weary or asked repose.” 10 His re¬ 
ward came in the esteem of those who could best comprehend 
the value of his services and in elevation to a high post of national 
distinction. His record as governor is epitomized in Stanton’s 
letter, 11 accepting his resignation of the office, in March, 1865. 
The secretary of war concludes: “Permit me on this occasion to 
render to you the thanks of this department for your patriotic 
and able services during the eventful period through which you 
have exercised the high trusts committed to your charge. In one 
of the darkest hours of the great struggle for national existence 
against rebellious foes the government called you from the Senate 
and from the comparatively safe and easy duties of civil life 
to place you in the front of the enemy and in a position of per¬ 
sonal toil and danger, perhaps more hazardous than was en¬ 
countered by any other citizen or military officer of the United 
States. With patriotic promptness you assumed the post, and 
maintained it under circumstances of unparalleled trials, until 
recent events have brought safety and deliverance to your state, 
and to the integrity of that constitutional Union for which you 

10 Nashville Times, January 7, 1865, quoting Atrihinson (Kansas) 
Champion. 

u O. R., series iii, vol. iv, p. 1221; J. P., vol. lvii, -2426. 


MILITARY GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE 223 


so long and so gallantly periled all that is dear to man on earth. 
That you may be spared to enjoy the new honors and perform the 
high duties to which you have been called by the people of the 
United States is the sincere wish of one who in every official and 
personal relation has found you worthy of the confidence of the 
government and the honor and esteem of your fellow-citizens/’ 



INDEX 


Ammen, Gen. Jacob, Governor’s 
guard assigned to command of, 
187; then withdrawn from, 187; 
fails to support Gillem, 188 
Amnesty, See oath 
Anderson, Adna, Government super¬ 
intendent of railroads, 198 
Banks in Tennessee, 200-204. 

Bell, John, Presidential candidate, 1; 
signs Whig appeal to people of 
Tennessee, 6; declares for South, 7 
Benjamin, Judah, P., Orders repres¬ 
sion of Tenn. Unionists, 16; men¬ 
tioned, 27 

Bingham J. B., Urges appointment 
of Johnson as provisional govern¬ 
or, 96; member of Union executive 
committee, 98; complains of treat¬ 
ment of Union men, 130; denounces 
Memphis civil commission, 133; de¬ 
nounced, 135; urges enrollment of 
militia, 188; mentioned, 141, 156 
Boyle, Gen. Jeremiah T., Begs John¬ 
son for cavalry, 57 
Bragg, Gen. Braxton, Sanctions plan 
to kidnap Johnson, 38; occupies 
'Chattanooga, 54; invades Kentucky, 
59, 60 and notes; defeated at Stone 
River, 91; abandons Tullahoma, 
99; retreats into Georgia, 101; vic¬ 
tor at Chickamauga, 108; driven 
from Tenn., 108; mentioned, 44, 61, 
98 

Brayman, Gen. Mason, Report of, to 
Johnson, 90 

Breckenridge, Gen. John 'C., Esti¬ 
mates Buell’s conciliatory policy, 
72 note; invades East Tenn., 155, 
187; routs Gillem’s guard, 157, 188; 
mentioned, 25, 213 
Brien, M. M., Mentioned, 98, 131. 
Bridges, George W., Elected to Con¬ 
gress, 13; arrested by Confeder¬ 
ates, 13; escapes, 13; mentioned, 

141 

Brownlow, William G., Imprisoned, 
17; denounces the administration, 
58; opposes lenient treatment of 
Tenn. secessionists, 72; member of 


Union executive committee, 98; at 
Knoxville convention, 126; speech 
of, at Baltimore convention, 128; 
denounces Federal court at Knox¬ 
ville, 135; on condition of refugees, 
158; nominated for governor of 
Tenn., 171; states his policy, 172; 
elected, 174; appeals for protection 
for East Tenn., 186; mentioned, 1, 
14, 16, 18, 96, 175 
Buchanan, James, Mentioned, 23. 
Buckner, Gen. Simon B., Retreats in 
East Tenn., 101; mentioned, 94 
Buell, Gen. Don Carlos, Appointed to 
command, 17; policy of, regarding 
Tenn., 17; rebuked by Lincoln and 
McClellan, 17; wisdom of plan of, 
18 and note; occupies Nashville, 
19; opposes provincial government 
for Tenn., 34; advises Johnson of 
popular temper in Nashville, 38; 
reinforces Grant at Shiloh, 50; on 
the defence of Nashville, 51, 53, 
62, 63; friction beteen Johnson and, 
53; advances on Chattanooga, 54; 
checked by Bragg, 54; removal of, 
urged, 58; campaign of, against 
Bragg, 59, 60, 65; rupture between 
Johnson and, 60 et seq.; Johnson 
complains of, to Lincoln, 61; court 
of inquiry into conduct of, 63; dis¬ 
satisfaction with, 65; intolerable 
position of, 65-67; succeeded by 
Rosecrans, 67; estimates of, 65 
note; conciliatory policy of, 71, 72 
note; complains of disloyalty of 
Tenn., 74; mentioned, 52, 55, 69, 

70, 76, 86, 176, 179 

Burnside Gen. Ambrose E., Invades 
East Tenn., 99; occupies Knoxville, 
101; retreats and defends Knox¬ 
ville, 108; mentioned, 106, 109 
Butler, R. R., Resolutions of, 161, 
170 

Byrd, Col., Mentioned, 144, 166. 
Campbell, John A., Member of Union 
executive committee, 98 
Campbell, William B., Suggested as 
military governor of Tenn., 31 


225 


226 


INDEX 


note; chairman of Unionist mass 
meeting, 47; speech of, 48; con¬ 
servative Unionist candidate for 
governor, 100; signs protest against 
Johnson’s policy, 149; proposed by 
Johnson as commander of relief 
expedition to East Tenn., 179; 
commissioner for release of prison¬ 
ers, 194; mentioned, 1, 151 
Canby, Gen. Edward R.S., Orders 
draft, 173 

Carper, John, Speech of, in recon¬ 
struction convention, 162 
Carter, Gen. Samuel P., Urges dis¬ 
tinction between degrees of loyalty, 
113; mentioned, 212 note 
Caruthers, Robert L., Nominated for 
governor of Tenn., 95; declared 
elected, 99; mentioned, 1 
Catron, Judge, Charge of, to grand 
jury, 45 

Cavalry, Confederate, 50, See also 
Forrest, John H. Morgan, Wheeler. 
Chattanooga, Buell advances on, 54; 
Bragg retreats to, 99; Bragg aban¬ 
dons 101; delegates to National 
Union convention elected at, 128; 
Union refugees at, 157; mentioned, 
59 

Cheatham, Richard B., Mayor of 
Nashville, removed from office and 
imprisoned, 42, 43 
Chickamauga, Battle of, 108; men¬ 
tioned, 211 

Churchwell, Col. W. M., Confederate 
provost-marshal; orders of, con¬ 
cerning Union refugees, 18 
Citizens of Tenn., Relation of, to 
military government, 33; consti¬ 
tutional meaning of citizenship, 34; 
Johnson’s proclamation for protec¬ 
tion of loyal, 72; Halleck’s orders 
concerning treatment of, 84; ar¬ 
rest of secessionist, 85; defined by 
Attorney-General Maynard, 120; 
propositions to discriminate be¬ 
tween classes of, on basis of 
loyalty, 162 

Clements, Andrew J., Elected to 
Congress, 13; suggestions of, for 
reconstruction, 162 
Clergy, Anti-Unionist, of Nashville, 
suppressed by Johnson, 43 
Commissions in Tenn., See courts 
Convention, Gov. Harris suggests 
submitting question of secession 


to, 2; Tenn. legislature provides 
for popular vote on, 3; Tenn. de¬ 
cares against, 5; Knoxville-Green- 
ville Union, 12; Confederate nomi¬ 
nating, June, 1863, 95; Union, 
July, 1863, 96-98; second Knoxville, 
125 et seq.; Union, to elect dele¬ 
gates to National Union conven¬ 
tion, 127; National Union, at Bal¬ 
timore, 128; call for, to discuss 
state problems, 140; Union, Sept. 
1864, 140-147, 189 (membership, 

140; radical domination, 140; con¬ 
servative position, 141; conserva¬ 
tive resolutions, 141, 143; conser¬ 
vatives forced out, 144; resolutions 
adopted, 144; relation of Johnson 
to, 147) ; -call for preliminary re¬ 
construction, 157; reconstruction, 
Jan., 1865, 158-172 (call for, 158; 
informal nature of, 158; delayed 
by Hood’s invasion, 159; meets, 
160; admission of delegates, 161; 
basis of voting, 161; radical policy, 
163; conservative policy, 163; 
amendments to state constitution 
proposed by radicals, 165; author¬ 
ity of, to amend constitution denied, 
166; radical amendments opposed, 
166; Johnson’s speech, 167; results 
achieved, 170; provisions for state 
elections and nomination of can¬ 
didates, 171) ; discussion of, system 
of reconstruction, 214 
Cooper, Edmund, Appointed John¬ 
son’s private secretary and confi¬ 
dential agent, 42 

Corinth, Halleck advances on, 52 ; 

abandoned by Confederates, 54 
Courts in Tenn., Reopened in parts 
of state, 45; friction between civil 
and military, 45; war department’s 
rules regarding, 45; judicial -com¬ 
missions in Memphis, 46; provost, 
in Nashville, 78; requested for 
Knoxville, 112; reopened, 131; 
civil and military, at Memphis, 131- 
133; in West Tenn., 134; in Knox¬ 
ville denounced 135; opened, 136; 
rights of colored persons in, 146 
Crawford, Col. R. C., Mentioned, 142 
Crittenden, John J., Johnson’s speech 
on compromise proposition of, 27; 
protests against removal of Buell, 
67; mentioned, 24, 125 
Currency in Tenn., 199-204 



INDEX 


227 


Dana, Charles A., Interviews John¬ 
son, 105, 219 

Dana, Gen. Napoleon J. T., Friction 
between, and judges, etc. in West 
Tenn., 135 

Davis, Charles, Federal commissioner 
to administer Confederate prop¬ 
erty, 86 

Davis, Jefferson, Proclaims martial 
law in East Tenn., 18; Johnson’s 
retort to, 22; strictures of, on mili¬ 
tary government in Tenn., 35; re¬ 
mark of, on Johnson’s proclama¬ 
tion, 118 note; mentioned, 9, 14 
note, 16, 43, 44 

Deserters, Confederate, enlisted by 
Rosecrans and Johnson, 195; en¬ 
listment of Confederate, forbidden 
by Thomas, 195; Confederate, sent 
north of Ohio river, 195; loyal, 
from 'Confederate army, 195; 
Union, 196 

Dickson Capt. J. Bates, Rebuked for 
interfering with Johnson, 183 
Dorr, Col. Joseph B., Reports con¬ 
ditions in Humphries county, 123 
Douglas, Stephen A., vote for, in 
Tenn., i860, 1 note; reasons for 
Johnson’s failure to support, 24; 
Johnson compared to, 220 
Driver, Capt., Mentioned, 144 
Dumont, Gen. Ebenezer, Approves 
reinforcements for Nashville, 51 
East, Edward H., Appointed secre¬ 
tary of state, 42; governor pro 
tern., 175 

East Tennessee, Conditions and sen¬ 
timent in, before wat, 4; votes 
against convention, 5; votes against 
secession, 10; Union convention in, 
12; congressional election in, 13; 
importance of, 14; Confederates 
overrun, 14; Confederate policy in, 
14-17; loyalty of, 16; Buell fails 
to succor, 17; persecution of loy¬ 
alists in, 18; Burnside invades, 99, 
101; conditions in (1864), 124, 186; 
Knoxville convention in 125 et seq.; 
proposition to make separate state 
of, 125; Union nominating conven¬ 
tions in, 128; Gillem’s operations 
in, 186-188; complaints of, troops, 
191; mentioned, 7, 44, 46, 56, 58, 
67, 73 , 9 i, 99 , 104, 131, 139 , 211 
Edwards, Col. Richard M., Sugges¬ 
tion of, regarding electors, 144 


Elections in Tenn., Congressional, 
Aug., 1861, 13; municipal, in Mem¬ 
phis, June, 1862, 87; congressional, 
attempted, Dec., 1862, 89-90; Con¬ 
federate, Aug., 1863, 99; conser¬ 
vative Union, Aug., 1863, 99-100; 
Johnson proclaims county, Jan., 
1864, 118; irregularities preceding 
county, 122; county Mar., 1864, 123; 
attempted, Dec., 1862, 89-90; Con¬ 
vention, May, 1864, 127; presiden¬ 
tial, 1864 (provided for, 144; or¬ 
dered by Johnson, 147; held, 156; 
declared invalid by Congress, 156) ; 
state, Mar., 1865 (provided for, 170, 
machinery for, 171; nomination of 
Union candidates for, 171; held, 
174 ) m 

Emancipation, See Johnson, Lincoln, 
slavery, Tennessee 
Etheridge, Emerson, Heads conserva¬ 
tive Union party, 99; urges recog¬ 
nition of Campbell as governor, 
100 ; signs protest against Johnson’s 
policy, 149; mentioned, 7 
Ewing, E. H., Mentioned, 6 
Finances of Tenn., 199-204 (condi¬ 
tion of banks, 200; decline of bank 
paper, 201; remedies proposed, 201; 
instability of state institutions, 203; 
industrial chaos, 203; Johnson’s 
policy, 204) 

Forrest, Gen. Nathan B., Captures 
Murfreesboro, 54; approaches 
Nashville, 57, 62; prevents Union 
elections, 90; enters Memphis, 134; 
cooperates in organizing Confed¬ 
erate militia, 156; mentioned, 50, 
Si, 58 , 74 , 190, 212 
Foster, Turner S., Elected circuit 
judge, 48; imprisoned by Johnson, 
48 

Fowler, Joseph S., Appointed comp¬ 
troller of Tenn., 42; mentioned, 
141 

Franklin, Battle of, 159 
Gass, D. P., Proposes disfranchise¬ 
ment of secessionists, 162 
Gaunt, Judge, Views of, on amnesty, 
166 

Gentry, Meredith P., Johnson de¬ 
feats, for governor of Tenn., 1855, 
21 

Gillem, Gen. Alvin C., Commands 
governor’s guard, 186; expedition to 
East Tenn., 187-188; guards Nash- 


228 


INDEX 


ville-iNorthwestern irailroad, 198; 
mentioned, 157, 211 
Governor’s guard, Provision for, 42; 
1st Tenn. regiment transferred to, 
83; authority for, 176 note, 179; 
operations of, in East Tenn., 186- 
188; friction between Johnson and 
army officers over, 187 
Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 'Captures 
Forts Henry and Donelson, 19; 
proclaims martial law in West 
Tenn., 19; victor at Shiloh, 46; 
commands departments of Cumber¬ 
land, Tennessee, and Ohio, 108; 
drives Bragg from Tenn., 109; dis¬ 
satisfied with Thomas, 159 ; direct¬ 
ed to guard Nashville-Northwest¬ 
ern railroad, 198; mentioned, no, 
191 

Greeley, Horace, Mentioned, 149 
Greene, Capt. Oliver D., Johnson’s 
quarrels with, 57, 69, 70; men¬ 
tioned, 177 

Greenville, Union convention at, 12, 
13; mentioned, 20 
Guerillas, 15, 44, 50, 52 et passim 
Halleck, Gen. Henry W., Directed to 
provide troops for Johnson, 42; 
instructions of, regarding relation 
of military and civil courts, 45*; 
ordered to protect Nashville, 51; 
advances on Corinth, 52; explains 
failure to send troops to Nashville, 
53; plan of, to clear East Tenn., 
54; asked to suggest successor to 
Buell, 58; orders Buell to occupy 
East Tenn., 67; explains relation 
of civil to military government, 
80; rebukes Rosecrans, 81; instruc¬ 
tions by, regarding treatment of 
inhabitants, 84; mentioned, 46, 55, 
179 

Harris, Isham G., Convenes Tenn. 
legislature, 2; message of, 2; re¬ 
fuses Lincoln’s demand for troops, 
5; urges secession and union with 
Confederacy, 7; motives of, 8; 
authorized to raise and direct 
Tenn. troops, etc., 8; proclaims 
congressional elections, 13; flees to 
Miss., 19; remark of, concerning 
Johnson, 22; proclaims Confeder¬ 
ate nominating convention, 95; ad¬ 
ministration of, indorsed, 95; men¬ 
tioned, 6, 9, 10, 62, 100, 106 
Harrison, Horace H., Member of 
Union executive committee, 98 


Henry, Gustavus A., Johnson defeats, 
for governor of Tenn., 21 
Hilliard, Henry W., Reports to 
Toombs on conditions in Tenn., 8; 
addresses Tenn. legislature, 9 
Holloway, Lieut. Junius B., On 
Buell’s conciliatory policy, 72 note 
Homestead bill, Championed by John¬ 
son, 22; vetoed by Buchanan, 23 
Hood, James R., Moderate leader in 
reconstruction convention; minor¬ 
ity report of, 166; attacks the radi¬ 
cals, 167; mentioned, 169 
Hood, Gen. John B., Invades Tenn., 
158; checked at Franklin, 159; 
routed before Nashville, 159; men¬ 
tioned, 44, no, 199, 213 
Houk, Col. L. C., Activities of, in 
reconstruction conventions, 141, 
142, 143, 161, 162 
Houston, Russell, Mentioned, 6 
Hurlbut, Gen. Stephen A., Declares 
Tennessee ready for reconstruction, 
104; misgivings of, regarding 
Memphis election, 137; mentioned, 
134 

Johnson, Andrew, Begs aid for Tenn. 
Unionists, 14, 17; sends muskets 
to East Tenn., 14 note; appointed 
military governor, 19; youth of, 
20; early political career of, 21; 
political principles of, 22; views of, 
on slavery, secession, coercion, 23; 
relations of, with Douglas, 24; sup¬ 
ports Breckenridge, 25; reasons for 
devotion of, to Union, 25; com¬ 
promise proposal of, 25; attacked, 
27; speeches of, for Union, 27; 
member of joint committee on 
conduct of war, 30; objections 
to appointment of, 30 note; com¬ 
mission of, 32; instructions to, 
32, 176 note; problems of, 32- 
38; plots and threats against, 37; 
address of, to the people, 38; states 
purpose of military government, 
39; conciliatory attitude of, 39; re¬ 
lation of, to army, 42; vacates and 
refills offices in Nashville, 42 ; sup¬ 
presses anti-Union press, 43; and 
clergy, 43; facilitates reopening of 
courts, 45; at Union mass meeting, 
48; dealings of, with Turner S. 
Foster, 48; asks reinforcements for 
Nashville 51-53; criticizes Buell, 
53; quarrels with Federal officers, 
55; complains of lack of support, 


INDEX 


229 


56; authorized to raise cavalry, 56; 
quarrels with Capt. Greene, 57, 69; 
plan of, for defence of Nashville, 
59; rupture between Buell and, 60 
et seq.; deposition of, at trial of 
Buell, 63; gains credit for saving 
Nashville, 64; demands removal of 
Negley, 64; Lincoln’s story of, 64; 
embarrassing position of, 67; Lin¬ 
coln’s confidence in, 68; quarrels 
■with military authorities in Nash¬ 
ville, 69; secures authority to ap¬ 
point provost-marshal, 70; friction 
between John Lellyett and, 70; 
policy of, for protection of Tenn. 
Unionists, 72, 73; mulcts Pulaski, 
72; banishes disloyalists, 73; adopts 
repressive policy, 74; appoints com¬ 
missioners to administer oath of 
allegiance, etc., 76; authority of, 
eclipsed by military, 77; controver¬ 
sy between Rosecrans and, over 
Truesdail and cotton scandals, 79- 
83; forbids payments of rents, etc. 
to secessionists, 85; controls admin¬ 
istration of Confederate property, 
86; proclaims congressional elec¬ 
tion, 89; secures exception of Tenn. 
from emancipation proclamation, 
91; speech of, on slavery in Tenn., 
92; speech of, at Nashville 93; 
administration of, indorsed, 98; 
accused of delaying reconstruction, 
99, 100; implacable toward seces¬ 
sionist leaders, 102; policy of re¬ 
construction of, 103; on conditions 
in Tenn., 105; submits plan of 
reconstruction to Lincoln, 106; re¬ 
ceives authority for reconstruction 
of Tenn., 107; speech of, on 
reconstruction, 107; attitude of, re¬ 
garding amnesty oath, 113; speech 
of, on reconstruction, 114-117; 
proclaims county elections, 118; im¬ 
poses stringent oath, 119; support¬ 
ed by Lincoln, 120; blamed for 
failure of county elections, 123; for 
immediate emancipation, 124; at 
Knoxville convention, 126; nom¬ 
inated for vice-presidency by Tenn. 
Union convention, 128 ; and by Na¬ 
tional Union convention, 129; re¬ 
quests exception of Tenn. from 
amnesty proclamation, 131; power 
of, to establish courts denied, 133 
Union convention indorses admin¬ 


istration of, 145; proclamation of, 
regarding reconstruction, 146; ap¬ 
peals for aid and threatens dis¬ 
loyalists, 146; orders presidential 
election in Tenn., 147; explana¬ 
tion of course, in convention, 
14 7 ; policy of, condemned by 
peace Democrats, 148-153; campaign 
speech of, to negroes, 154; speech 
of, in reconstruction convention, 
167; policy of, triumphant, 168; 
valedictory of, 173; Stanton’s in¬ 
structions to, 176 note; relations 
between Thomas and, 177; orders 
governor’s guard to East Tenn., 
186; friction between Schofield and, 
187; scope of civil authority of, 
205; relief of destitute adminis¬ 
tered by, 205, 206; urges that dis¬ 
loyal citizens be sent south, 207; 
protects citizens from military 
officials, 207; reconstruction policy 
of, criticized and defended, 210- 
217; personal estimate of, 217-223. 
See also deserters, finances, mili¬ 
tary government, militia, negro, 
prisoners, railroads, reconstruction, 
troops 

Johnson, Mrs. Andrew, Treatment 
of, by Confederates, 18 
Johnson, Dr. G. D., Candidate for 
mayor of Memphis, 137 
Johnson, Gen. Richard W., Captured 
by Morgan, 55 

Johnson, Col. Robert, Mentioned, 
178 

Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., Abandons 
Nashville, 19; mentioned, 98, 99 
Jones, William P., Member of Union 
executive committee, 98 
Kentucky, Tenn. refugees in, 16; 

Bragg’s raid into, 59-60 
Knoxville, Union conventions at, 12, 
125; ocupied iby Burnside, 101; 
siege of, 108, 109; Federal court 
for, urged, 112^ election at, for 
delegates to National Union con¬ 
vention, 128; refugees at, 157, 158; 
mentioned, 16, 18, 27, 157. 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., Mentioned, 99 
Leftrick, J., Member of Union execu¬ 
tive committee, 98 

Legislature of Tenn., Convened by 
Harris, 2; passes resolutions 
against coercion, 3; submits ques¬ 
tion of convention to people, 3; 


230 


INDEX 


approves league with Confederacy, 
9; provides for popular vote on 
isecession and union with Confed¬ 
eracy, 9; adjourns sine die, 19; 
meets for reconstruction, 175 

Lellyett, John, Friction between John¬ 
son and, 70; spokesman for Mc¬ 
Clellan supporters’ protest to Lin¬ 
coln against Johnson’s policy, 151 

Lincoln, Abraham, Rebukes Buell, 
17; appoints Johnson military gov¬ 
ernor, 19; placates Johnson, 57; 
story of Johnson by, 64; confidence 
of, in Johnson, 68; anxious for 
reconstruction of border states, 88; 
sends agents to promote recon¬ 
struction, 88; emancipation procla¬ 
mation of, 88, 91; suggestions of, 
regarding reconstruction of Tenn., 
106; empowers Johnson to recon¬ 
struct Tenn., 107; proclamation of 
amnesty and reconstruction by, 
no; sends agent to Tenn., 112; 
position of, regarding amnesty 
oath, 113; supports Johnson’s plan 
of reconstruction, 120, 217; nomi¬ 
nated by Tenn. Union conventions, 
128; amnesty proclamation of, de¬ 
nounced and derided in Tenn., 129, 
130; administration of, indorsed by 
Tenn. Union convention, 145; con¬ 
troversy between, and McClellan 
supporters in Tenn., 148-153; wins 
Tenn. election, 156; urges Johnson 
to raise troops, 180; urges raising 
of colored troops, 181; mentioned, 
1 note, 2, 5, 7, 17, 18 and note, 
25, 53, 54, 61, 119, 222 

Logan, Gen. John A., Mentioned, 
159 

Longstreet, Gen. James, Reinforces 
Bragg, 108; operates against Burn¬ 
side, 108, 109; mentioned, 211 

Lookout Mountain, Battle of, 109 

McClellan, Gen. George B., Assigns 
Buell to command, 17; policy of, 
regarding East Tenn., 17; censures 
Buell, 17; views of, as presidential 
candidate, 148; supporters of, pro¬ 
test to Lincoln against administra¬ 
tion policy in Tenn., 148-153; ticket 
withdrawn in Tenn., 153; vote for, 
in Tenn., 156; mentioned, 18 note, 
34, 143 

Matthews, Col. Stanley, Johnson’s 
animosity toward, 69; mentioned, 
177 


Maynard, Horace, Elected to Con¬ 
gress, 13; begs government for 
arms for East Tenn., 14, 17; at¬ 
torney-general of Tenn., 42; mem¬ 
ber of Union executive committee, 
98; decision of, regarding status 
of amnestied citizens, 120; men¬ 
tioned, 1, 4, 16, 18, 96, 141 

Meigs, R. J., Suggestions of, to 
Johnson, regarding policy as mili¬ 
tary governor, 38 note; urges con¬ 
fiscation of slaves of Confederates, 
92; mentioned, 6 

Memphis, Confederate state govern¬ 
ment in, 19; captured by Federals, 
44; legal commissions in, 46; muni¬ 
cipal election in, 87; mass meet¬ 
ing in, urges reconstruction, 112; 
meeting of conservative Unionists 
in, 121; courts and commissions 
at, 131-133; Forrest enters, 134; 
municipal affairs in, 136-138; gov¬ 
ernment of, subverted, 138; presi¬ 
dential vote in, 1864, 156, 190; cop¬ 
perhead activity in, 173; mentioned, 
27, 52, 55 , 89, 212 

Mercer, S. C., Founds Nashville 
Daily Union, 43 

Middle Tennessee, Votes against 
convention, 5; for secession, .10; 
military operations in, 1862, 52; 
Buell explains disposition of troops 
in, 53; Union nominating conven¬ 
tion in, 127; mentioned, 12, 13, 44, 
50, 51, 130, 139. See also Nash¬ 
ville. 

Military government, Problems con¬ 
nected with, 32; relation of, to 
citizens, 33; constitutional status 
of, 34-37; Jefferson Davis on, 35; 
purpose of, stated by Johnson, 38- 
40; relation of, to army, 42, 176, 
183; and courts, 45-46; repressive 
measures of, under Johnson and 
Rosecrans, 72 et seq .; confusion of 
civil and military authority under, 
76; scope of civil authority of, 
205; miscellaneous functions of:— 
raising troops (home guards, 178; 
cavalry, 56, 178; infantry, cavalry, 
artillery, 179; governor’s guard, 
179, 186-188; recruits from other 
states, 180; colored troops, 180- 
185; militia, 188-190; supplies, 191; 
summary, 192) ; investigation, dis¬ 
charge, and recruiting of prisoners, 
192-195; deserters, 195; construe- 


INDEX 


231 


tion and guarding of railroads, 196- 
199; regulation of finances, 199- 
204; relief of destitute, 205-207; 
protection of citizens, 207; over¬ 
sight of negroes, 207-209 
Military operations in Tenn., Corinth 
campaign, 52; campaign to clear 
East Tenn., 1862, 54; Bragg’s in¬ 
vasion of Ky., 59 et seq., Federal 
plans for 1863 , 91; Rosecrans’ 
campaign, 1863, 91, 98, 99, 101, 107, 
108; Grant’s campaign against 
Bragg, 108; Hood’s invasion, 158, 
159 

Militia of Tenn., Enrollment of (in 
West Tenn, 135; urged, 188; Nash¬ 
ville convention declares for, 189; 
Johnson’s proclamation for, 189; 
difficulties in, 189) ; summary of, 
190; minor problems connected 
with, 191 

Milligan, Samuel R., President of 
Union convention, 141 
Milroy, Gen. Robert H., Difficulties 
of, in enrolling militia, 189 
Missionary Ridge, Battle of, 109 
Mitchel, Gen. Ormsby M., Advances 
to Tuscumbia, 52; Confederate 
pressure on, 52; retreats, 53 
Mitchell, Gen. Robert B., Enforces 
confiscation act, 85; orders seizure 
of goods of delinquents, 85; exacts 
oath of allegiance, 86 
Morgan, Gen. George H., At Cum¬ 
berland Gap, 54; outflanked by 
Kirby Smith, 60; mentioned, 61, 
179 

Morgan, Gen. John H., Menaces 
Nashville, 54; captures Gallatin, 
55; closes in on Nashville, 62; en¬ 
ters Pulaski, 73; death of, 187; 
mentioned, 50, Si, 58, 72, 1S6 
Morgan, Samuel T., Candidate for 
mayor of Memphis, 137 
Mundy, Col. Marc, Urges advantages 
of conciliatory policy, 41; reluctant 
to try civilians in military courts, 
43; mentioned, 73 

Murfreesboro, Captured by Forrest, 
54; battle of (or Stone River), 91; 
mentioned, 57 

Mussey, Col. Reuben D., Estimate 
of negro troops by, 185; reports 
on negro schools, 209 
Nashville, Offered as Confederate 
capitol, 9; Buell plans to strike at, 
17; abandoned by Confederates, 


19; occupied by Buell, 19; municipal 
officers of, deposed by Johnson, 
42; disloyal press and clergy of, 
suppressed, 43; courts reopened at, 
45; Union mass meeting at, May, 
1862, 47; in danger, 51; Buell’s 
plans regarding, 52, 62, 63; be¬ 
sieged, 55-63; Johnson the soul of 
defence of, 64, 179; Rosecrans re¬ 
lieves, 67; complaints against John¬ 
son in, 72; jumble of offices at, 76; 
confiscation act in, 86; Union sen¬ 
timent in, 89; Johnson’s speech 
against slavery at, 93; Union con¬ 
vention at, July, 1863, 96; loyalty 
of municipal officers of, impugned, 
hi; Union mass meeting at, Jan., 
1864, 114; Union rally at, Mar., 
1864, 122; election at, for delegates 
to National Union convention, 127; 
Union meeting at, Aug., 1864, pro¬ 
poses convention, 140; Union con¬ 
vention at, Sept., 1864, 140 et seq.; 
presidential campaign in, 154; 
presidential vote of, 156; battle 
of, 159; reconstruction convention, 
Jan., 1863, at, 160 et seq., legisla¬ 
ture meets at, 175; fiscal difficulties 
at, 200; refugees in, 206; negroes 
in, 208; mentioned, 7, 17, 18, 27, 
34, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53 , 54 , 

59 , 65, 69, 70, 74 , 75 , 78, 79 , 81, 
83, 85, 9 2, 101, 134, 157, 177 , 179 , 
182, 183, 188, 189, 191, 192, 196, 
197, 198, 199, 201, 205, 209, 212, 
213, 218, 219 

Nashville Union Club, Declaration 
of principles of, 93 

Negley, Gen. James S., Johnson de¬ 
mands removal of, 64, 69; instruct¬ 
ed to compensate Unionists out of 
property of disloyalists, 74; in¬ 
structed to assume custody of bank 
at Columbia, 200; mentioned, 70 

Negro, Population (Stanton’s instruc¬ 
tions regarding, 207; wretched con¬ 
dition of, 208; relief measures for, 
209; education of, 209); troops 
(Lincoln urges enlistment of, 180, 
181; enlistment of, 182; compensa¬ 
tion to former loyal owners of, 
184; conditions of enlistment of, 
184; efficiency of, 185; public senti¬ 
ment regarding, 185) 

Nelson, Thomas, A. R., Elected to 
Congress, 13; imprisoned by Con¬ 
federates, 13; takes oath of neu- 


232 


INDEX 


trality, 13; calls second Knoxville 
convention, 125; signs protest 
against Johnson’s policy, 149; 
mentioned, 1, 4 

Nelson, Gen. William, Defends 
Nashville, 58; Johnson secures 
removal of, 69 

Newspaper press, Nashville, sup¬ 
pressed by Johnson, 43 

Oath, Of allegiance (amnesty offered 
in return for, 40; Nashville offi¬ 
cials, clergy, etc. required to take, 
42; penalties for refusal to take, 
73; commissioners to administer, 
appointed, 76; exacted by Gen. 
Mitchell, 86); amnesty (no; Lin¬ 
coln’s plan for reconstruction based 
on, in; suggestions regarding, 
112; difficulties regarding, 1,12-113; 
Johnson opposes, as qualification 
for franchise, 114; derided, 129; 
abuses under, 130; mentioned, 
120); Union test (advocated by 
Johnson, 115; text of, 119; signifi¬ 
cance of, 119; condemnation of, 
120-122; Lincoln supports, 120) ; 
“unconditional” or “iron-clad” 
(text of, 145; required of voters, 
147; reasons for, 148; objected to 
by peace Democrats, 149; injustice 
of, 217) 

Olin, Abraham B., Views on status 
of seceded states and constitutional 
basis of military government, 35 

Palmer, Gen. John M., Commands 
Nashville garrison, 62; estimate of 
Johnson by, 221 

Park, John, Elected mayor of Mem¬ 
phis, 87; denounced as disloyal 
136; asserts his loyalty, 137; re¬ 
elected, 138; deposed by Washburn, 
138 

Parole, Non-combatant, Required of 
citizens of Nashville, 86 

Peace Democrats, Platform of, 148; 
contest elections in Tenn., 148; pol¬ 
icy of “unconditionals” in opposi¬ 
tion to, 148; controversy of Tenn., 
with Lincoln, 148-153; ticket of, 
withdrawn, 152; discrimination 
against, in Tenn. censurable, 153. 

Peyton, Bailie, Mentioned, 151, 221 

Pillow, Gen. Gideon J., Report of, 
on conditions in Tenn., 7 

Police, In Nashville, 78; army de¬ 
tective police, 78 

Prisoners, Release of Tenn., sought 


by Union mass meeting, 48; at¬ 
titude of 'Confederate, 193; peti¬ 
tions from Confederate, 193; C. F. 
Trigg investigates, 194; authority 
of Johnson regarding, 194; W. B. 
Campbell commissioner for release 
of, 194; Confederate, permitted to 
join Union army, 194; authority 
to recruit, assigned to Rosecrans 
and Johnson, 195; discharge of, dis¬ 
continued, 195 

Pulaski, Mulcted by Johnson, 72 

Railroads, Louisville, Nashville and 
Chattanooga (cut by Bragg, 59; 
importance of, 197; difficulty in 
defending, 197) ; Memphis, Clarks¬ 
ville and Louisville (threatened, 
55; Johnson assumes control of, 
196) ; Nashville and Northwestern 
(importance of completing, 197; 
Johnson urges completion of, 197; 
Johnson authorized to complete, 
197; guarding of, 198; turned over 
to war department, 198; controver¬ 
sies over, 198-199) 

Ramsay, James, Mentioned, 143 

Reconstruction in Tenn., Urged by 
Union mass meeting, May, 1862, 48 ; 
Lincoln sends agent to promote, 88; 
discussed by Union convention, 
July, 1863, 96-98; Johnson accused 
of delaying, 99; Johnson’s policy 
of, 103; Johnson submits plan for, 
to Lincoln, 106; Lincoln’s sugges¬ 
tions for, 106; Johnson receives 
full authority for, 107; Lincoln’s 
proclamation regarding, 110; 
speedy, deprecated by Union 
League, 1,11; urged by Memphis 
•meeting and by Gen. Thomas, 112; 
Johnson’s plan for, 113 et seq.; 
Johnson urges stringent oath for 
participants in, 114-117; test oath 
required of voters in, 118, 120; 
Johnson blamed for failure of, 123; 
Union convention of, Sept., 1864, 
takes steps toward, 140-145; John¬ 
son’s proclamation regarding, 146; 
Johnson appeals for aid in, 146; 
call for preliminary convention for, 
157 ; final convention for, 160-171; 
accomplished, 173-175; Johnson’s 
policy of, criticized, 210; and de¬ 
fended, 211-217; possible explana¬ 
tion of Johnson’s haste in, 215. See 
also convention, elections, Johnson, 
Lincoln, military government, oath! 


INDEX 


233 


Rodgers, S. R., President of Tenn. 
reconstruction convention; speech 
of, 161 

Rosecrans, Gen. William S., Instruc¬ 
tions to, regarding relation of mili¬ 
tary to civil courts, 45; assigned to 
command department of Cumber¬ 
land, 67; adopts repressive policy, 
75 ; controversy between Johnson 
and, over Truesdail, 79 et seq.; re¬ 
buked by Halleck, 81; accused of 
complicity in cotton scandals, 82; 
correspondence of, with Johnson, 
82; objects to transfer of regiment 
to governor’s guard, 83; repressive 
policy of, criticized, 83; creates 
board of claims for Nashville, 85 ; 
directs arrest of secessionists, 85; 
advances against Bragg, 91; victor 
at Stone River, 91; drives Bragg 
from Tullahoma, 99; pursues 
Bragg into Georgia, 101; defeated 
at 'Chickamauga' 108; relieved of 
command, 108; authorized to re¬ 
cruit prisoners, 195; enlists Con¬ 
federate deserters, 195; proposes 
that Johnson complete Northwest¬ 
ern railroad, 197 

Schofield, Gen. John M., Checks 
Hood at Franklin, 159; Johnson 
urges substitution of Thomas for, 
in East Tenn., 187; troubles of, 
over governor’s guard, 187 

Schurz, Carl, Recollections of John¬ 
son by, 219 

Scott, Thomas A., Report of, un¬ 
favorable to appointment of John¬ 
son, 30 note 

Secession in Tenn., See convention, 
Harris, legislature, Tennessee 

Shackelford, Gen. James M., Cap¬ 
tures Confederate force at Cum¬ 
berland Gap, 101 

Sherman, Gen. William T., Burns 
Randolph, 55; relieves Knoxville, 
109; secures control of Nashville- 
Northwestern railroad, 198, 199; on 
financial situation in West Tenn., 
200; approves of sending secession¬ 
ists south, 207; mentioned, no, 
134, 155, 158, 187, 188, 191 

Shiloh, Battle of, 46 

Sidell, Maj. W. H., Account of 
Johnson’s plan for defence of 
Nashville by, 59 

Slavery in Tenn., Johnson’s views 
on, 23; effect of emancipation 


proclamation in Tenn., 88; Tenn. 
excepted from emancipation proc¬ 
lamation, 91; Johnson’s speech on, 
92; Nashville Union on, 92; de¬ 
nounced by Nashville Union Club, 
93 ; Johnson on, 105; Lincoln 
presses for emancipation clause in 
Tenn. constitution, 106; Johnson 
on, 116-118; condemned by Union 
meeting, 118; Johnson for imme¬ 
diate emancipation, 124; Johnson’s 
opponent, denounced as seeking to 
save, 124; abolition of, in Tenn. 
demanded by Union convention, 
145; Johnson declares end of, 155; 
emancipation amendment to con¬ 
stitution proposed in reconstruction 
convention, 165; proposed amend¬ 
ment regarding negro suffrage, 165; 
abolition urged by Johnson, 168; 
abolition amendment approved by 
reconstruction convention, 170; 
abolished, 173 

Smith, Gen. E. Kirby, Cooperates 
with Bragg, 60 and note 
Smith, Hugh, Mentioned, 78 
Smith, Gen. William Sooy, Complains 
of lenient policy of government, 74 
Stanton, Edwin M., Orders Halleck 
to provide troops for Johnson, 42; 
orders Halleck to protect Nashville, 
51; Johnson complains to, of weak 
defence of Nashville, 52; confidence 
of, im Johnson, 54, 68; authorizes 
Johnson to raise cavalry, 56; in¬ 
structions of, to Johnson, 176 
note; authorizes Johnson to raise 
funds for home guard, to raise 
troops, etc., 178, 179, 180; corre¬ 
spondence of, with Johnson regard¬ 
ing organization of colored troops, 
182, 183; orders of, regarding negro 
enlistments, 184, 185; authorizes 
Johnson to examine and report on 
prisoners and to enlist prisoners 
and deserters, 198, 199; transfers 
management of Nashville-North¬ 
western railroad to Anderson, 198; 
orders of, concerning support of 
negroes, 207; enlogizes Johnson, 
222; mentioned, 74, 82 
Stearns, Maj. George L., Authorized 
to enlist negroes, 182; friction be¬ 
tween Johnson and, 182 
Stephens, Alexander H., Estimate of 
Johnson’s speech on the Crittenden 
compromise by, 29 


234 


INDEX 


Stevens, Thaddeus, Views on status 
of seceded states and on constitu¬ 
tional basis of military government, 
34 

Stone River, Battle of, 91 

Temple, Oliver P., Account of John¬ 
son’s speech for Union by, 27; ac¬ 
count of Knoxville convention by, 
126; criticizes Johnson’s reconstruc¬ 
tion policy, 210-213; mentioned, 18 

Tennessee, Conditions in, before war, 
1; legislature of, convened, 2; se¬ 
cession agitation in, 3; sentiment 
in, 4; repudiates secession, Feb., 
1861, 5; forms military league with 
Confederacy, 9; secedes and joins 
Confederacy, 10; military govern¬ 
ment established in, 19; economic 
conditions in, 1862, 47; conciliatory 
policy of Johnson and Buell in, 
71; disloyalty of, 73; reconstruc¬ 
tion of, urged by Lincoln, 88; ab¬ 
sence of Union enthusiasm in, 90; 
excepted from emancipation proc¬ 
lamation, 91; Confederate dis¬ 
couragement over, 94; economic 
conditions in, 1863, 104; political 
conditions in, 1863, 105; 1864, 139; 
troops, 177-192; finances, 199-204. 
See also East Tenn., Middle Tenn., 
West Tenn., convention, courts, 
elections, legislature, military gov¬ 
ernment, military operations, mil¬ 
itia, railroads, reconstruction!, slav¬ 
ery 

Thayer, Eli, Urges confiscation of 
lands of Confederates, 130 

Thomas, Gen. George H., Favors 
occupying point near Cumberland 
Gap, 17; proposed as successor to 
Buell, 58; speaks in Buell’s favor, 
66; at Chickamauga, 107; assigned 
to command department of Cum¬ 
berland, 107; urges speedy recon¬ 
struction, 112; urges reorganiza¬ 
tion of courts, 134; retreats before 
Hood, 158; war department and 
■Grant dissatisfied with, 159; 
crushes Hood, 159; urges recon¬ 
struction, 160; Johnson urges, for 
command in East Tenn., 187; or¬ 
ders of, regarding deserters, 195- 
196; favors sending secessionists 
south, 207; view of, regarding re¬ 
construction, 212 note; mentioned, 
62, no, 188, 190, 198, 199 

Thomas, T. B., Delegate to Union 

RB -94 


convention; resolutions by, 141, 
143; resolutions of, laid on table, 

144 

Tomeny, J. M., Member of Union 
executive committee, 98; testifies 
against civil commission at Mem¬ 
phis, 133 

Toombs, Robert, Mentioned, 8 
Trewett, Judge, Resolutions of, 163 
Trigg, -C. F., Opens circuit court at 
Knoxville, 131; investigates prison¬ 
ers, 194 

Troops, Tenn., See military govern¬ 
ment 

Truesdail, William, Chief of army 
detective police, 78; alleged cor¬ 
ruption of, 78 et seq.; Johnson 
complains of, 79; implicated in 
cotton scandals, 82; administration 
of, investigated, 83; denounced by 
Johnson, 83; mentioned, 106, 177, 
203 

Union League, Deprecates speedy 
reconstruction, 111 
Veatch, Gen. James C., Appoints civil 
commission at Memphis, 132 
Walker, Leroy P., Mentioned, 7 
Washburn, Gen. Cadwallader C., 
Subverts government of Memphis, 
138; mentioned, 134 
Webster, Gen. Joseph D., Mentioned, 
198 

West Tennessee, Votes for conven¬ 
tion, 5; votes for secession, 10; 
martial law in, 19; military opera¬ 
tions in, 52; Union sentiment in, 
89, 105; Union nominating con¬ 
vention in, 128; courts in, 134; 
enrollment of militia in, 135; ad¬ 
ministration defeat in, predicted, 
139; Confederate activity in, 156; 
deplorable conditions in, 160; 
small vote for reconstruction in, 
173; discontent in, 190. See also 
Memphis 

Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, Operations of, 
134; activity of, diminishes Union 
vote, 140; mentioned, 186, 190 
Whigs in Tenn., Strength of, before 
war, 1; vote of, i860, 1 note; ap¬ 
peal of, to people, 6; disappearance 

of, 7 

Yansil, Col., Confederate provisional 
governor of Tenn., 156 
Zollicoffer, Gen. Felix K., Com¬ 
mands Confederates in East Tenn., 
14; mentioned, 15, 16 


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